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Wednesday 17 February 2010

Little Dale Horseshoe

gayle leads up hindscarth

I let Bruno drive to the Lakes this morning as I was still a bit tired from the wife’s Uncle Joe’s funeral yesterday. he’s quite good and he does mirror-signal-manoeuvre, but not in that order…

Anyway, I put him in the back at the Threlkeld roadworks and we arrived at the appointed spot at chapel bridge in Newlands where we were pleased to meet Gayle and Mick. Martin and Graham arrived late having parked somewhere else. they will, of course, have their pay docked or they can make up the time on Christmas Day (mwhahahah) – Just a little Human Resources joke, there…

distant skiddaw

And so, in blazing sunshine and slowly melting frost we embarked on the Little Dale Horseshoe, or, as its known in Bill Birketts Book “great British Ridge Walks” – The Little Dale Horseshoe by Scope End to Hindscarth anad the Littledale Edge to Robinson descending via High Snab Bank (draw breath…)

Which is what we did.

littledale horshoe ahead

I have to report that the felltop conditions today were nothing less than superb – easy underfoot with a thin cover of new, specially fluffy snow, blue skies, light winds, big views. Big, big white views.

Bruno took to Mick and jumped for snowballs and, generally did his charming bit (in the hope, no doubt of The Ultimate Motivator – Food) Mick needs a dog.

blencathra from hindscarth

I was lucky in that the group seemed to instinctively wait for me to heave my way up the hills Its the beta blockers. the cardiac nurse says I could stop taking them but the chances are that I could penk out and take the stairway to heaven. Its up to you, he said. Otherwise, just put up with it. So I plod upwards.But I think that more steep stuff like this, together with a move towards my ideal weight (current weight minus 10kg) – I might be able to go uphill a bit quicker. As it is, frankly, its a torture. I’m really much better off without any company at all. I can do the thing with the really small steps and Bruno doesn’t whinge on about being left behind. But for the time being at least, I’ll bash on being sociable….

hindscarth summit

lunch on hindscarth

And so, after bagging Hindscarth and Robinson we descended by High Snab Bank – the icy/slippery rocksteps providing some excitement and entertainment. I was planning a rocky landing, but managed, in the end to slither off in a fairly undignified scitterring and dithering semi-frantic series of lurches and scrapes.

Afterwards, we repaired to the pub at Braithwaite for a short period of reflection and recuperation and, maybe the odd sniftah.

descending high snab bank

This was a fab walk, today – thanks to Martin Banfield for the notion – and thanks also to Mick and Gayle and Graham for the company and the location of crucial footholds….

littledale shadowdog

TIts very possible that other versions of this walk will shortly be appearing on Mick and Gayle’s blog http://gayleybird.blogspot.com/ and Martin’s blog at http://phreerunner.blogspot.com/

It may well be that the accounts will all be different this time.

You should of know this would appen. Innit?

We did 6 miles and 2500 feet of uphill. See map. We went clockwise. Bruno went clockwise and anti-clockwise and described various inner circles too….. we know a song about this..

littledale

4 comments:

afootinthehills said...

Great site and lovely pics of your Lakes trip. I found 'Sitemeter' as a bonus and have installed it. Cheers.

Mike Knipe said...

Thanks - and welcome by the way.
Any resemblance of the text in this account to any other accounts in any other blogs may not be entirely coincidental by the way.

For sitemeter, you have to add on the RSS feeders activity to get a better clue as to traffic. You can spot regular readers, though, which is interesting...

John J said...

You mean you know that I've been reading your blog?

Hersedro.

Her said ro've been reading the Pieman Chronicles again.

Timperley dialect is that.

JJ

Mike Knipe said...

Its possible, JJ, if you post a comment, your "outclick" to the comments can be linked to your computer, and after that I'd know when you'd been looking and some of what you've been looking at.
One chap did search the blog for porn - but the nearest he got was a slab of cake. We know who he is, where he lives and what he had for his tea last night... obviously.