Tom reminded us that there are two North Grains, 100m apart, Upper and Nether with, helpfully, Upper being the upper of the two on the Snake Road. And, for those who really want to know, spacious parking is at the Nether of the two Grains. Here, belated greetings for the New Year were exchanged and we welcomed Cat who is new to Warting and Penny after a year’s long absence due to injury.
I thought the start of the Crookestone race and the start of one of the Warts’ Westend runs through the Banktop Plantation were seriously steep but the rock climb direct from the Nether carpark takes the steepness to another height (unless, of course, you know of a more serious one, any bids?). It was recognised immediately, therefore, that this was going to be a typical Harmerian outing, though in recognition of the coming Saturday’s birthday run and the need to save (?) ourselves for it, tonight’s trip was to be limited to one and a half hours. At this stage, there was some scepticism, based on hard won experience, that we would achieve this.
In order to collect another Nether, we scrambled out of the rock face and headed over the groughs towards Nether Reddale Clough which was descended in the belief at the time that it was the Alport. Remember, after all, it was dark and the extent of torch beams was a couple of meters. At least that was my excuse. For fun and excitement, we descended the “Alport” until we realised that the Alport had shrunk and that this must be Nether Reddale. So, having descended, climbing back out provided some useful training, we all thought. We did make it to the Alport and we did descend it though, on the way down more “saving” was needed as John D tipped head over heels into a stream. He faced downhill with legs in the air and head in the stream. Many hands hauled him out only then for us all to face the icy like slippery crossing of the Alport. Fortunately, hands across the water avoided anymore dunkings. Having crossed it once, another kilometre found us crossing it again though with less drama and yet more hand holding.
With one and a half hours in our grasp, it was a direct crossing of Over Wood Moss area to the car park. If you like groughs which, of course we all do, then, oh what joy, particularly when the occasional gully block gave us some deep immersion therapy, not to be missed. Whilst there was half a plan to visit Upper North Grain cabin, we never did, though we may have crossed the upper reaches of Upper Grain and, for completeness, we finished in the nether reaches of Nether North Grain and the car park in an hour and a half.
So, a successful outing duly preparing us for the Birthday run on Saturday and then topped off with refreshments at the Ladybower.
Graham