An unexpected encounter in the Ewden valley resulted in the questioning of our group sanity by ourselves and by a local farmer who had spotted lights moving down the valley. He’d come out to investigate, only to find seven old bemused men stumbling around in the dark. Whilst not actually saying, “you must be mad”, his implication was apparent. Since we weren’t worrying sheep or cattle, he concluded we were harmless and waved us off with jolly farewell.
Our two and half hour grapple with the mainly deep heather and the terrain of the Broomhead moors, started in the fading light of a clear sky which heralded the near freezing temperature we later encountered. The clear sky also gave us the spectacular fiery red, almost full, moon-rise the in south. Wow, we were impressed!

It took our minds off our attempts to move quickly (!) through deep heather. We did try to stick to the Slow Warts’ principles of avoiding paths whilst desperately and secretly wanting a path. However, we did a bit of track running from the car park up towards the shooting cabins but, be careful what you wish for, it had been improved (?) with some chunky gravel to improve our ankle flexibility. Fortunately, any adverse effects of the gravel were reduced by the soothing cold water of Ewden Beck. The steep descent and climb out of it, provided a test of balance on the slimy stones in the beck and the fragile tree branches. So, we emerged as improved, though still bemused, Slow Warts.
Our search for fireplaces continued from last Wednesday’s snowy outing, this time at the Park Cote ruin, but sadly, none, instead we had the delight of a substantial door lintel with an illegible engraving on it. More notably to us, was the wide-open crack across the lintel, now apparently only supported by a small piece of apparently friable stone so there was some nervousness in going under it. We did though, and left the Cote as we found it.
It’s a long way to Pike Lowe from there especially through knee and thigh high deep heather finishing off with the added charm of hidden rocks, near the summit. It was surprising to shelter behind the cairn where it felt warm, well, less cold. There had been a wind behind us up to there. Leaving the cairn we almost retraced our steps through more thick heather, on a compass bearing from Andy’s Jim Paxman sort of compass, that is, one with reversed polarity. Whether that was the cause or not, we wandered a bit right, through yet more energy sapping heather, before finding steeply descending ground. So doing a right-angled turn, we continued along the edge to the track by the shooting butts.

All well we thought, but a tricky descent through bracken, barbed bramble and rhododendron was needed to reach the girders across the Beck. Always make sure that all your pockets are zipped up before crawling across. Many a compass has ended up in the swirling waters of the Beck, don’t despair though, some have been retrieved. The piece de resistance of our two and half hour epic, was the cold and wet jungle trek back up to the gravelly track to the finish.
At the Plough, we recounted past glories, long distance walks and runs including a 50-mile road race (!) and crossing the Grand Canyon but tonight’s challenging mixture of terrain was approaching some of these epics. Yes, it had been hard work but on reflection, it was worth it. Thanks to all. We were sane after all, or were we?
Graham
