It was good to return to the regular Warts’ Wednesday night outings, this time at the autumn equinox from Fairholmes where ten athletes (average age, mid-sixties; Michael, Simon and Roger reducing it from seventyish, otherwise) gathered for another adventurous Andy Harmer designed route.
The Warts’ desire to reach obscure manmade structures, including aircraft wrecks, or naturally formed curiosities was evident as we set off on our adventure, via the first part of Nicky’s Summer Series Rowlee Zig Zag race. After Lockerbrook Farm and the first two race check points, we omitted the next check point of the ragged and faded DPFR vest (an allegory for Warts?) in Alport Grain and headed for the Whitefield Pits on a long, inclined contour (oxymoron?) to visit an indistinct cairn. Its location was on the lower of two slight bumps in the sort of plateau in the Pits and, also, it was of a small and crude construction signifying nothing in particular, that we know of. There was even talk of its reconstruction on the higher bump, so ten athletes one stone at a time, twice over, ought to complete the job in about ten minutes, perhaps? However, as thoroughbreds, we were not to be diverted from reaching our final curiosity.
Small feet like those of sheep, I suspect are more agile at contouring than my large feet, however, I continued on several intermittent sheep trods progressively losing ground on the distant Warts until the rocky and screey jumble of the Alport Castles. As my immediate horizon amongst the rocks had shrunk, there was only one or two Warts in view and by the time I’d descended/slid down a tricky scree chute and been squeezed out of the narrow gap between two sort of mini rock towers, there was no one to be seen. In retrospect, this was probably the experience of most of us. After stumbling to the foot of The Tower, Bob and Tom appeared on its descent so, it was now my turn to reach the “summit”.
The Warts have been to The Tower a few times mainly in torch lit night conditions where the sense of vertigo is reduced by the lack of height visibility. Daylight, however, does give a clear sight of the steep, to say the least, scramble to the top and, more critically, the hairy return to the bottom of The Tower. Half way up and the visible horizon was now just a couple of feet (61cm!) as the gully seemed to close in but then widen at the top where Pete appeared around the corner. We had a short discussion but failed to work out where everybody else was so we descended and met a gathering of waiting Warts. However, four were still missing, John had very wisely avoided aggravating his injury by missing the rocks and three others, Andy, Clive and Simon, had gone the intended way over The Tower and then northish up the steep climb to Birchin Hat.
The rest of us escaped from the Castles and climbed up to the delights of the flagstones over Rowlee Pasture. Again, following our tendency to separate from each other, some took to the flagstones and others took the softer ground option on the parallel quad track on the Pasture. By the Lockerbrook Farm area, we had separated so much, we seemed to be running on our own to the cars. We did all eventually all gather together though the Birchen Hatters were a bit behind having done a significantly longer outing.
There were no absentees at the Yorkshire Bridge Inn as we managed to all sit on one table, no diaspora now! Our exercise and the beer encouraged some very creative conversations ranging from the on-screen AGM, race organisation, club championships, ancient Roman concrete, Covid experiences, access issues, the danger of drowning during the Margery Hill race……………………………
Adventure stimulates the mind!!??
Graha