We had a few minutes of daylight for our start from Blackden car park which isn’t really a car park but the remains of the road which had slipped down the hill and is probably continuing to slide down. The shiny new replacement road continues to distort and be repaired with the latest land slide closing half the road. Without having the expertise to judge, it nevertheless seems that this hillside is unstable, to say the least.
The purpose of our run was to examine the reported (by Chris) widening of a large opening in the hillside above the road and, after ten years, to revisit the site of Andy’s semi-disappearance into it. Finding it was the first problem. We climbed and descended a series of mounds interspersed with bogs, which took us gradually uphill to the Cowms Rocks edge area. Here, the left or right navigation system was used. There was a sort of consensus to go right but after about 100m, it seemed either a wall was in the wrong place, or we were. On the basis that walls don’t move, even on this unstable ground, we turned back to the left and encountered wide, deep and dark sinister looking chasms. There was no choice for Andy who was persuaded by the other eight of us, to risk climbing into his now enlarged fissure for a record of this notable feature, now named Andy’s Crack.
Thanks to Chris for leaning over the precipice to take the photo.
Our attention to detail was necessary to pinpoint this mantrap on the map for the sake of any one wanting to explore this area again and, once more, Chris came to the rescue with the spot point on the OS map, just to the right of the wording “Cowms Rocks” (see the track at the end).
The descent into Oyster Clough was surprisingly pleasant with some patches of tussock free ground to let loose (if you dared) to the A57 for a climb up to Gate Side Clough followed by now traditional Warts’ sprint to the finish at the car park. There were a few choices, at least four, of contour lines, avoiding crossing the deepest parts of three cloughs including Dunge Clough, all finished off with a traditional attempt to run all the way up the slimy path to the cars.
Later we were disappointed again to find that the Yorkshire Bridge Inn was closed, clearly our business was not enough to justify opening on a Wednesday evening. Fortunately, the Anglers’ Rest was open, though, to start with we were the only customers.
Another grand outing with a high content of geological chatter. Thanks to all and to Chris for the photo.
Graham
