Tag: glacial
-
The Terminal Moraine at Kildale: Elgee Revisited
An early morning climb up Park Nab before the day’s work began at the Kildale chapel archaeological dig (Out & About passim). I shall wait until later in the season to write properly about that—when we have found something to write about. Instead, as I looked out over the valley, I found myself returning to…
-
Green Bank: Where the Ice Met its Match
Yesterday’s post about Hagg’s Gate set me off thinking, descending yet another rabbit hole: about the time the last glacier flowed down the Vale of York and slammed into the Cleveland Hills. About the time that ice sheet politely stopped at the hills’ feet. About the time these great north and west escarpments of the…
-
Lake Greenhow: A Forgotten Relic of the Ice Age
Yesterday’s post led me to glaciers, glacial lakes, and the like. At Botton Head, my imagination ran riot. Difficult as it is to picture now, 10,000 years ago, a glacier covered the Tees Valley before me. The ice sheet, it is well-known, never quite managed to smother the North York Moors. So, naturally, I wondered…
-
Where am I?
I am curious as to how many among you will succeed in locating this photograph without resorting to further reading or consulting the map provided at the bottom of the page. The two cyclists may give it away or else that slither of tarmac on the right. It is, of course, Scarth Nick, a pass…
-
Highcliff Gate — From Glacial Spillway to Forgotten Farm Track
The recent felling of Guisborough Forest has completely changed the landscape, evident even on this dreary spring day. Down in the valleys, vernal signs are everywhere: hawthorn buds are emerging, and the woods are alive with birdsong, and some birds are even gathering nest stuff. But up here on Potter’s Ridge, winter’s still holding its…
-
On a day like this …
… it is not hard to imagine the short stubby valley of Greenhow Botton being a lake impounded by the wall of glacial ice near Ingleby Greenhow. Analysis of the soils reveal the limit of the ice-front. Conspicious knolls, barely requiring more than one ring-contour above the surrounding dale, reveal the presence of sand and…
-
Bracing Bilsdale
I find there’s something bracing about being out after a fresh fall of snow. Particularly an unexpected fall of snow. This is Bilsdale, looking south from Hasty Bank. The settlement left of centre is the hamlet of Urra. Elgee wrote that “it is a trite axiom geology that the width of a valley and not…
-
Dove Crag and Hart Crag
Two mountains, twin peaks, Hart Crag at 2,698′, has its head in the clouds. Dove Crag, at 2,603′, is just about clear. I don’t think I have ever climbed either in their own right. Always on the way to or from Fairfield. And between them, the hanging valley of Houndshope Cove with its scores of…
-
Ewe Crag Beck
A run out from Danby to Sis Cross and back via Ewe Crag Beck, a deep long meandering valley. At its head it becomes Ewe Crag Slack where it is shallow, broad, and flat, forming a boggy col in the watershed. With “no stream worth mentioning” Frank Elgee suggests in his book The Moorlands of…
-
Holy Well Gill
Another trip onto Whorlton Moor. Second time in three days. I’m always fascinated by Holy Well Gill, an outflow from the glacial lake of Scugdale. Just a bit damp at the thalweg, a German word for the line following the lowest points of a valley. Open Space Web-Map builder Code