Having now given up all hope of completing half, let alone all, of the Hewitts by the end of my sabbatical, the focus has moved to enjoyment. Which is where it should have been all along, of course. To this end, my father and I spent a few days in the Yorkshire Dales, basing ourselves in Sedburgh. This being my dad’s first hill walk for several years, I deliberately kept fairly low expectations of how strenuous a walk we would achieve.
The Howgill Fells
On the first day, Tuesday, we set off about 9 and headed up the path alongside Settlebeck Gill. Reaching the col between Winders and Arant Haw, we struck up to the summit of the Haw and then headed for Calders. It then took a further ten minutes to cross Bramrigg Top as we headed for The Calf, the high point of the day.
A discussion about which path to take saw us veer left rather than right, but not left enough for Bush Howe, our intended target, as it later turned out. We arrived at a summit consisting of a pathetic clump of rocks, a miserable excuse for a cairn. We looked around and something didn’t look right. To the west a ridge ran parallel to ours – that shouldn’t have been there. Out came the map and my new GPS and it slowly dawned on me – we were on Hazelgill Knott.
We perched on the fell for our lunch, before retracing our steps back to Arant Haw. But we detoured over Winder on our descent to Lockbank Farm.
Ribblehead
Tired from yesterday, and with a gloomy weather forecast for wind and rain, we kept low today. We drove to Ribblehead and wandered around the area of the viaduct, poking into caves, before the murk drove us back into the car for a tour of Settle, Kirkby Lonsdale and back to Sedburgh.
Ribblehead
Tired from yesterday, and with a gloomy weather forecast for wind and rain, we kept low today. We drove to Ribblehead and wandered around the area of the viaduct, poking into caves, before the murk drove us back into the car for a tour of Settle, Kirkby Lonsdale and back to Sedburgh.
Ingleborough
With more energy in our legs after the wise decision to take it easy the previous day, and after a very leisurely start to the day, we drove to Chapel-le-Dale and parked at the Hill Inn, then set off on the path towards Ingleborough. There was low cloud higher up, but plenty to see before we got to that point. We ambled past limestone pavements, my dad pausing to study the botany, and me taking more interest in the pot holes, the most prominent of which was Braithwaite Wife Hole, right next to the path.
We slogged our way over the paving slabs to climb up onto Ingleborough itself. The summit was in cloud so we didn’t stop long as there wan’t really much to see. We descended the way we came, as far as the col between Ingleborough and Simon Fell, but then detoured alongside the fence squelching our way to the top of Simon Fell. we then retraced our steps and descended back to the car.
