In the warm glow of the pub last week, we’d decided on Birchen Clough for this Wednesday but, without Andy who had been at the seaside and had caught driver’s knee on his return, we’d have to invent our own route. Was it going to be north, west, south or east? On paper (a map), what was chosen was a north east-ish line incorporating a visit to the Scout Memorial Stone, the path on the opposite north eastern flank of the Alport valley and a pond on Alport Moor which involved a return crossing of the Alport.
Firstly, we plunged directly into the further darkness of the wood following Tim’s lead, to find a path, which we did, but after a fight through fallen trees and unstable ones, “don’t lean on those” was the shout. This was a challenging start of the ilk of Priddock Wood and Westend, topped off with a precarious fence climb (barbed!) accompanied by the sound of a fearsome torrent (drought, what drought!). The source of all this water became apparent as we slopped our way along the upper reaches of Birchen Clough, Torch lights seemed to be in all directions as we spread out over the moor but our more senior and mature group (Moz, Mike and I) stuck to our bearing and reached the edge of the mighty Alport valley. Fortunately, some lights could be seen heading for the Scout Stone. However, we hadn’t got through the bracken yet and I felt the need to have a rotting bracken bathe, a total immersion, which was questionably refreshing. Extricating myself, not easy when facing down the slope, we found the Stone to wait for the exploration (?) group (Simon and Anna) to arrive.
It is, as always, sobering and sad to read the memorial plaque but spirits were lifted when John W offered the latest Haribo confection prompting discussions on sugar lows and highs. Now with a sugar driven spring in our steps, we descended by the fence towards the river. It became clear that the visit to the opposite side of the valley was perhaps no longer attractive to us. So, we climbed back, up towards Over Wood Moss for our last regroup before the finish back at the car park having missed two check points, the Alport river crossing and the pond.
It is easy to say a straight way over the flat and swampy ground, but it is a long way and there is little to distract us from the tedium, apart from the sound of distant fireworks
and the head lights of passing traffic over the Snake Road summit. However, we did have excitement in the last 100m of descent to the carpark, slippery and steep, rebounding, like bagatelle balls, off the trees. This completed our two-hour plus outing.
Again, we were made very welcome at the YBI and we had stimulating conversations on the tying of shoe lacing using the Booth Knot. There are other types of almost undoable knots, including one imported from Poland, but none were completely guaranteed. In view of the presence of shorts this evening we were also drawn into the pink and, now leopard skin shorts, worn by long-time member Andy Moore.
We’d had a good evening, thanks to all.
Graham
