It was a great pleasure to welcome Moz back to his first Warts’ outing for a few months, though sadly, he wasn’t wearing his signature fluorescent leggings to further brighten our time with him. We look forward to seeing them, and him, soon.
Encouraged by the good visibility at Doctor’s Gate, our exploration of navigational techniques continued from last week, during today’s very rare daytime winter Warts’ torchless outing at 1pm. The use of various navigation systems was considered; a lodestone hung on a piece of string, the sun, rarely been seen in recent times particularly on our night expeditions, the “a bit right or left” technique, the use of a compass to the nearest 45⁰ and, this afternoon, local knowledge and the shipping forecast sea areas. There are 31 such sea areas, from Fair Isle in the north, Tyne in the east, Wight in the south and Irish sea in the west. So, as a more colourful way of navigating, for example, our guiding shout could well be “A little bit to Rockall” to get to our target. Of course, there’s always LK which has both served us well and has resulted in epic adventures, here speaks a joint winner of the Pertex Award for services to LK cock ups on my own patch when I worked in Glossop.
Our plan was to go on an anti-clockwise circuit from Doctor’s Gate to, Hern Stones, Wain Stones, Bleaklow Head, John Track Well, Yellowslacks, the Mausoleum Cave, Lower and Higher Shelf Stones and back, all in daylight. A brand-new compass was proudly displayed by Andy, as a replacement for his 20⁰ biased one which had provided so much entertainment on previous outings, though I did try to unsuccessfully present him with an emergency, very compact Christmas cracker compass. After this, we left the car park and, such was our tight knit group, we immediately dispersed to both sides of the fence over the moor. Our dread of paths meant we were able to reach Hern and Wain Stones over our favourite groughy terrain, although we did step briefly on Devil’s Dike. We were able to watch other people enjoying the delights of the upper reaches of Hern Clough, now having all the charm of a deep open drain.
Our smugness was short lived. We were now on the Pennine Way path to Bleaklow Head and beyond, down to JTW. It is about 1.5km but it seems much further, partly because of either the flagstones (hard on the feet) or the rockiness of the path. Yes, we shouldn’t complain, it’s one or the other. Despite this we reached JTW, though with some speculation of, why the name? It was slightly disappointing there wasn’t water bubbling out onto a carpet of sphagnum moss nor a carefully constructed circular wall with roofed hoist and bucket. There were just two converging peaty brown streams. Nevertheless, we were soon uplifted by the climb out of the stream junction through the deep heather when it’s possible that Moz and one or two of us may have been regretting the pleasure of this outing.
A bit of flat, downhill and relatively easy ground to Dowstone Clough lightened our spirit so we were able to concentrate on our next checkpoint, the Mausoleum Cave, high above Yellowslacks Brook. In the interest of making it harder to find, we decided to postpone it to a future night run. Something to look forward to?
In good DPFR tradition, we couldn’t decide whether to go to both Lower and then Higher Shelf Stones, so some did both and the others took a direct line to the trig at Higher SS. There, we could bask in the sunshine and be cooled by the wind which did remind us of a previous night time visit when gale force winds were forcing us to demonstrate our contortion skills to put on yet another layer prior to the possibility of suffering a touch of hypothermia, such happy memories!
The two and quarter hour outing was capped off by a crossing of the moor to the car park, now full, to be faced with questions from other visitors on how to get to the wreck of the Superfortress. Obligingly, we suggested a way to get there though with the proviso that, at 3.30, there probably wouldn’t be time to avoid darkness. However, one family with one child in backpack did set off as we left for the warmth and comfort of the Yorkshire Bridge Inn, but only for a swift pint, you understand, after which we did declare that it was yet another splendid Warts’ adventure.
Graham