Tag: Valley
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Honister Pass
Looking back on a long slog up to Littledale Edge from Gatesgarth on a glisky autumnal morning. 24 hours earlier the Lakes had been inundated by a tumultuous downpour with 75 mph winds forcing the abandonment of the 2008 Original Mountain Marathon (OMM) that “could have ‘turned mountains into a morgue’” according to one sensationalist…
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At the west end of Scot Crags
Well, it’s Scot Crags according to the first mappers of the Ordnance Survey. Probably better known as Barker’s Crags nowadays. I am looking down on the spur they mapped as Rakes Intake where Snotterdale merges with Scugdale. Scugdale is both an unusual valley and one of contrasts. It is one of the few east-west lying…
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Newlands Valley
It seems appropriate that, on what would have been Alfred Wainwright’s 113th birthday, to post a photo of a Wainwright, one of those 214 Lakeland fells listed in the seven volumes of his Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells. Well, here we have a pair of them, Catbells and Maiden Moor. Grumpy, stubborn, reclusive and…
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Bilsdale from Hasty Bank
One of those magic moments. A shaft of sunlight on an otherwise dull, drizzly, blustery day, picking out the old jet workings of Bilsdale. I was contouring around Hasty Bank looking down the dale, supposedly named after William the Conqueror found himself lost in a storm but more likely derived from a Dane named Bildr,…
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Baysdale
I very much doubt that any of these ruined barns is the one that gave its name to the “cowshed valley”, remote and isolated. Once Baysdale was home to a population of fairies who washed their ‘fairy butter’ in a favourite spring and left overnight on gate posts and fences after apparently throwing blobs at…
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Wheeldale
Wheeldale Beck, one of the upper tributaries of the Murk Esk, between Goathland and Wheeldale Moors. The house bottom left is Wheeldale Lodge, built at the turn of the 20th century as a gamekeeper’s house, probably James Patterson, who was the keeper to the Duchy of Lancaster when he “discovered” the nearby “Roman Road” in…
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Commondale
Most people associate Commondale with the small collection of houses centred around the Cleveland Inn at the bottom of Sand Hill Bank. But Commondale only really begins there and ends downstream at the confluence of Commondale Beck with the River Esk. A narrow, secluded dale, about 4km long. Cyclists using the bridleway between Foul Green…
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The Fairfield Horseshoe
A classic fell race, up one ridge, down the other, starting from Rydal, 10 miles with 900m of climb. Won in about 75 minutes. Viewed from Loughrigg Fell. Open Space Web-Map builder Code
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Raisdale
That little offshoot of Bilsdale. The North York Moors seem particularly dour and rugged at this time of the year. Fifty shades of brown. But the cloud breaks and the sun’s morning rays brings an enchanting tranquillity to the dale below. Aelred thought so, writing in the 12th century. He was Abbot of Rievaulx, a…
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Greenhow Burton
A crisp cold magical morning to climb Roseberry. Fleeting breaks in the clouds allow the winter sun to reveal the frosty fields of Greenhow Bottom. Sometimes mapped as Greenhow Botton, the name derives from the Old Norse ‘botn‘ meaning a bottom or depth such as the innermost recesses of a dale. The oldest Ordnance Survey…