No, we didn’t spontaneously break out into a rhapsody of Scottish songs praising the beauty of the heather, instead, it was self-contained and silent swearing about its often-overwhelming depth. It is the season for the full purple glory of the heather with its pollen clouds and wonderful scent which counteracts the otherwise inglorious odours of the Slow Warts. But the heather grows, and, wow, how it grows! If it is true that the grouse and the hares eat the young heather shoots, they ought to have had a bumper year.
The Slow Warts’ view
Andy’s route from Midhopestone Elbow was to avoid peaks and, particularly, on this outing, Pike Lowe, with its heather hidden rocks which makes an even more challenging terrain thereby increasing the walking to running ratio. But don’t be misled, this was no walk in the (National) park, the high knee lifts, the fight through the vegetation, the balance testing, the falling down and the standing up, all made for an especially jolly and very energetic Slow Warts’ adventure.
We had at least two master navigators, Tom and Andy, (apologies to any others) amongst the seven of us so the first check point of the rocky outcrop of Fox Stones (used in some of Nicky’s Summer Series races) should have been no problem to find. Normally, our approach to them has been from about the east, contouring around from the close by Ewden Beck and the Park Cote area. Coming from the north however, Fox Stones are hidden by some anonymous looking gentle mounds in the White Carr area which misled us. A sharp-eyed Wart and Chris’s technology brought us back into line and a suitable correction was made to get us to the Rocks.
There, we spent time staring contemplatively into the distance, a recently acquired skill, mainly to locate our next target of Tom’s Tree in Hawthorn Clough. However, whilst there was one willing Wart, the remainder’s contemplations had concluded that too much fun in the heather might spoil our sense of humour forever so we drifted towards the Candlerush area and on to Sugden Top, via a path around the left-hand side of Pike Lowe. Indeed, by always going around its left-hand side, the tour of it would be complete. Mission accomplished?
The Pike Lowe Round (Thanks to Chris B for the map)
The luxury of the path was short lived as we then left it for the heathery and boggy tributaries of Sugden Clough and, as is almost standard practice now, different lines were taken on the return to join the track by the shooting butts. Andy had dropped into Sugden Clough itself to the cabin where he briefly fraternised with a shooting family who were busy painting the cabin.
Whilst we improved the ratio of running to walking by jogging down the big track, there was a return to some mild Warting through the forest short cut which brought us back to the cars. The Plough at Bradfield provided the refreshment and a chance for the analysis of the 5-mile heather fest at the startling speed of just below 3 mph, wow!
Despite our possible grumblings, it was agreed that we’d had a terrific outing. As a bonus, I’d brought back some of the blooming heather on my socks!
Graham