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| The Tea Room at Mirehouse , closed! |
The start of all the forest paths |
| Arriving at the car park at Mirehouse we found the tea
room closed, a building site that took up half of the car park and lots
of rain! I was hoping to buy one of the forestry commission walk leaflets
that show all the forest walks, Sarah was hoping to use the loo, John and
Mike wanted some dry weather, so I guess none of us got what we wanted!
Undeterred we all put on our waterproof (or used to
be waterproof!) trousers
and jackets. I turned on the GPS unit and like the last walk waited ages
for it to track enough satellites to start navigating. This took an eternity,
everyone waited patiently whilst I messed around with the gizmo until I
realized that we were all getting wet waiting, I gave up in the end and
tied it to my rucksack and left it to it's own devices! So with no detailed
map of the forest paths we took the plunge and decided to follow the green
way markers towards Dodd summit. |
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| Heading up the first path |
A bench dedicated to Peggy Tyson |
| Well we didn't really as the sign post was pointing over
the stream and as I had used this once before as a way down from Skiddaw
I knew that it followed a metalled road all the way up to the col at Long
Doors. This was not what I had in mind, and as we could just about see
a green post on this side of the stream we followed this instead, hoping
that this was the return part of the green signs (does
that make sense?) I was putting lot's of faith in my memory of the area here, I knew that
the way down would be OK and I was now hoping that the way up would be
interesting, hopefully making our way upwards through the forest! The path
made it's way up alongside Skill Beck, I found some parts of this quite
steep. The path made a turn by a bench that had a plaque on it that said "FOR
PEGGY TYSON 1918 - 2003 WHO LOVED THESE FELLS" There was not much
talking going on at the moment, the rain was definitely putting a bit of
a dampener on every ones spirits (pun intended!) . John decided to run
up one section as he was feeling cold and needed to get warmed up. We came
across a family descending who had a couple of dogs with them. The mother
dog just passed us by but the baby dog was obviously scared by the sight
of us! There followed a bit of a mexican stand off as we waited for the
young dog to pass us and it waited for us to go somewhere else! Eventually
I took the decision to walk on past the dog and sod the consequences! |
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| Still heading up towards a road junction |
Looking back down from the road junction |
| Once past the dogs we carried on up quite a steep path until
we came out onto one of the forest roads. This came as a relief to me as
I had found it hard work walking up here, we weren't going fast but I just
don't think I was physically up for anything more than a gentle stroll
today! Once on this road we soon found a junction and we turned to the
right. This was nice and easy now as the road followed the contours around
the fell side. The rain had started to ease somewhat and we had a chance
to all walk together along the wide road. As the road rounded a corner
we were able to look up at the summit and see it for the first time today.
As I think about this I am beginning to realize what trust the others place
on me during these walks, today they had not even been able to see Dodd
at all, as far as they were concerned we just parked in a car park and
started walking, even in this poor weather they just got on with it and
followed my directions, well they couldn't really follow me as I was lagging
behind again! |
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| Walking along the forest road |
Dodd summit in view for the first time |
| The road made its way gradually up hill and soon came out
above a clearing. My first memories of Dodd must date back to about
1980 or so when I was on an Outward Bound course. I can vividly remember
a mountainside totally covered by trees, I thought it was very scenic!
My next memory must be from about 1986 when I started to work up here.
This was not long after the Chernobyl incident and I remember all the restrictions
placed on the farmers and livestock movements at the time. I was driving
past and noticed many trees that looked dead. I was shocked and worried
at the time but soon came to realize that some of these trees are deciduous!
Now with a large swathe of trees felled, probably years ago, I still look
back and remember the time when this fell side was full of trees. AW writes
about the time before any trees were planted and he comments on how spoilt
the landscape would soon look as the planting began. AW had his memories
and I have mine, personally I liked the sight of a mountainside full of
trees! But then again I never knew it as it was before. Something to ponder
on! |
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| The road above a cleared area |
John tries out the rock! |
| As the road made it's way along above the felled area we
had come out of the shelter of Dodd, it was a dull wet day and we couldn't
really see much of anything. We soon came to a place where one of green
posts was. Here was the start of a path that left the road and made it's
way straight up the fell side. Nearby was some exposed rock, probably exposed
when they made these forest roads. John, obviously a bit fed up decided
to chance his arm and see if it offered any opportunity to bring a bit
of scrambling into the walk! I don't think he was impressed and soon gave
up, it was just too wet and slippy for any fun! |
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| A Panorama over Bassenthwaite towards Barf and Lord's Seat |
| While John tried out the rock I decided to take a bit of
a panoramic photo as without any trees in the way we could see a good bit
of Bassenthwaite and the area of Whinlatter Forest on the other side. The
weather made this a bit difficult as everywhere you looked it was just
murky, a very yuk sort of day! |
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| A steep path leaves the forest road |
but soon levels out |
| The green posts indicated a path that led upwards away from
the road. This looked quite steep so I just put my head down and got on
with it, I just about managed to make it to the top without running out
of steam! I had given myself a bit of a head start on the others
but as I neared the level section of this path they had caught me up! I
was really not with it today. |
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| Christmas Tree anyone? |
Along the path |
| Up here were lots of young trees that looked like they would
sit nicely in my front room for a few weeks, I wonder if anyone would notice
a missing one?, only joking of course! The path changed directions
here and started to follow the fell side. again. I have to say that after
the last few minutes of exertion this came as a pleasant relief for me.
This path was much narrower than any that we had been on before and I have
to admit that I really liked it! |
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| Looking over Bassenthwaite towards Sale Fell |
Looking along the path |
| Making our way along this path I was having fun. The fact
that I was being left behind by the others, it was wet and cold didn't
bother me at all, what did bother me was that little nagging ache that
was starting to make its presence felt in my toes. I had hoped that the
problems with my feet were long behind me but the last walk had shown that
I was wrong. At least on that walk they had waited until the last descent
to begin playing up! |
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| The path goes through some trees |
And onto the open fell side. again |
| As the path made its way back into the shelter of some trees
after passing through an exposed part of the fell I called a halt for a
cuppa. The others did not seem interested but I needed a drink. I sorted
myself out whilst everyone else just stood there. I thought that we would
be sheltered here but with every gust of wind the tree branches shook and
deposited large amounts of water straight down on top of everyone. I don't
think they were impressed! |
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| John finds a dead Vole |
Into the cloud we go! |
| Having satisfied my thirst we again set off along the path,
soon coming out onto the open fell side again. The small path joined a
track and started to climb up the side of Dodd. John discovered the body
of a small animal that he identified as a Vole, whatever one of those is !
It had been run over by the wheels of some sort of vehicle, possible even
by a bike, oh dear! John soon put the Vowel down and started to trudge
off upwards, he seemed to be in one of his head down and get on with it
moods today and he soon left me and Sarah lagging behind again! Mike sort
of managed to keep up with him. |
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| The start of a zigzag along the path with lots of rain now! |
And into the cloud again higher up |
| Soon we started to walk into the cloud, it was very windy
and cold up here on the exposed side of Dodd. We had no views apart from
the path in front of us but "onwards and upwards" we went! As we reached
the start of some zig zags the weather took a turn for the worse as the
wind increased it's ferocity and the rain started to come in sideways,
this made it hard work walking directly into it, no fun at all! |
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| A short detour to a view point , no view today! |
Heading higher up |
| At the end of the zig zag path we came to a tee junction.
The way we wanted was to the left but a small path lead up to a small rise.
I just had to have a wander over. On a clear day the view from here must
be great but today all I could see was different shades of grey! When
I returned to the others who still waited at the path junction John asked
me how far it was still to go. I know that he had been waiting here a while
for me to catch up with him, and then he waited whilst I made a slight
detour and back, all the time being buffeted by the wind and stung by the
rain. He was wet, cold and fed up. I think he was ready to turn his back
on Dodd and walk back to the car, it was the first time that I have ever
seen John near the point of giving up! I convinced him that it could not
be that much further and that once we had reached the summit we would be
walking a different route back, probably (or did I
say definitely!) in
the shelter of Dodd. He agreed to carry on and again set off at a blistering
pace. |
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| Nearing Dodd summit |
Dodd summit |
| The way up to the summit, which wasn't that far away anyway,
made its way in one direction and then another. Sarah and myself seemed
to enjoy the point where we had our backs to the wind, we were nearly blown
upwards at times! When we had to walk into the wind it was no fun at all. Eventually
we caught up with John and Mike who were trying to shelter just under the
summit, I don't think they were having much success as it was blowing a
gale! |
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| John, Mike and Sarah on the summit of Dodd |
The terrible trio at Dodd summit |
| Sarah and myself just walked straight up to the summit,
John and Mike followed and here it was, Dodd summit, no view, terrible
weather, four wet and cold walkers and me with a camera who still insisted
on trying to take some pictures (am I daft or what?) With no chance of
any sort of panoramic photo I took a few photos of the summit, a quick
snap of John Sarah and Mike and then handed the camera to Mike for him
to take one of the terrible trio, there was no chance of us hanging around
here waiting for the timer on the camera to wind down and take a snap of
all of us! Of course just to make things harder the photos had to be taken
with the people looking directly into the teeth of a gale, to try and protect
the camera of course! Sarah seemed to struggle to stand upright and seemed
a bit miffed that her face was not in any of the pictures! |
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| Heading back down the way we came |
A brief glimpse of Latrigg |
| This must have been the shortest time we have ever spent
on a summit! With no view, bad weather and not being able to think of any
reason to stay here we headed back down. I must admit that I was relatively
dry, warm and feeling quite happy apart from my feet of course! Now that
we had reached today's objective I began to think about how the others
were feeling, John I knew was not in good shape due to his aging equipment
i.e. what was once waterproof and warm was no longer! With the weather
the way it was I thought now would be a good time to get back down quickly
so I started to run back down the path that we had come up. Now I don't
normally do "run", but today I thought I would make an exception! I could
hear the others close behind me so I carried on, thinking that this was
a good idea. I must have ran for at least , oh let me think, a minute or
so at least! Then I realized that 1) I was knackered, 2) my feet hurt like
hell, and 3) the weather had improved! I needed an excuse to stop running
so I got out the camera (great things these digital
cameras!) and took
a picture of Latrigg that had suddenly appeared out of the clouds! (I
like Latrigg now!) John and Sarah looked on in silence and carried on walking
(they get a bit miffed when I stop to take silly photos!) Don't tell them
that I do this to get a breather! |
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| Nearing the col at Long Doors |
One of the Crags at Long Doors |
| We soon reached a road that we had crossed before and I
told them to turn left. I was questioned about this but told them that
this road headed to Long Doors and a great road back down to the car. This
would offer us much more shelter than retracing our steps back (I
hoped!) This
road headed straight for the Col between Dodd and Carl Side, and from there
if my memory served me well onto a forest road that led directly back to
the car park. At first this was an easy walk, it was going in the right
direction, the weather was not as bad and now that we were heading back
everyone's spirits seemed to improve. At one point the road turned away
to the right and John took a small detour to see if there was a possible
way forwards. I did not think this was a good idea as my memory sort of
told me about some nearby crags. I was relying on my memory as 1) I did
not have the forestry commission walking map route thing, 2) I was not
going to get my map out in this weather , and 3) I knew I was right! Normally
these thought are a recipe for disaster but I was sure about this. A bit
of local knowledge and homework served me well as John returned from his
detour shaking his head and I carried on walking. Around the corner, five
minutes later we found the Col at Long Doors and the road that I remembered.
Was that good planning and great memory or just dumb luck! One thing that
struck me at the time was the noise, due to its location between the mass
of Carl Side and Dodd this col acts as a wind tunnel. As the wind was still
strong the noise was deafening, we could hardly hear ourselves and the
smiles on the faces sort of told the story about how impressive this was! |
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| Brighter weather over Bassenthwaite and Sale Fell |
Heading down the forest road |
| Once at the col the road that we were following turned into
a fell walkers version of a motorway. Wide, flat and level! The wind
was still blowing but as it was directly behind us it helped our forward
progress. Off in the distance we could see some sunshine on Sale Fell again,
I knew what was coming next as John and Sarah started to say about the
weather being nicer somewhere else today and why aren't we over there instead
of here! This seems to be a recurring theme as whenever we have poor weather
they can always manage to see somewhere that is bathed in sunshine, well
at least not raining! |
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| The camera fogging up down the road |
Should have gone up Sale Fell! |
| Just past the col we reached a junction of the roads, we
took the smaller one to the left or the west side of what was to become
Skill Beck. I remember the road on the other side as being a metalled road
that was a bit boring, so the smaller road was chosen. Due to my
feet I was walking extremely slowly now but this seemed ok with the others
as now that they were in shelter they had cheered up. A moment of confusion
arrived when we reached a path that came up to meet the one we were on.
It had a green post just down it and They wanted to follow it instead,
I told them that this crossed Skill Beck and involved a bit of ascent on
the other side, something that my feet did not want! So we carried on and
soon reached a junction that they recognized (see, I can do plans!) |
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| Retracing our steps from the road junction that |
The new construction work at Mirehouse |
| From here it was just a case of retracing our steps back
to the car park. I was still walking very slowly and was looking forwards
to getting out my stove and brewing up some hot chocolate, after all, it
really went down well last time. I caught up with the others near the bench
that I had photographed on the way up, Sarah had no memory of it at all,
how weird is that! Maybe she was in head down mode at that time! Arriving
back at the car park I set up the cooker and started to boil some milk
whilst everyone else took the opportunity to get changed in a relatively
calm weather window. John eventually joined me for a drink of hot chocolate
whilst Sarah and Mike declined and stayed in the car, why did I bother!
John asked me what I had thought of the tree branch that had fallen down.
I wondered what he was going on about and he then explained that as they
were getting changed they had heard a noise and looked up to see a tree
branch fall down to earth very near to where I had set up my cooker, I
had not noticed a thing! After finishing off the last of the hot chocolate
I hurriedly packed everything back into my rucksack and tried to get changed,
of course I had missed the brief window in the weather and got soaked! |
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| The GPS Track log from today's walk |
We headed back into Keswick to see
if I could do a bit more christmas shopping, I had no luck but was
impressed with the display in Cotswold Outdoors of the new Memory Map
1:25000 maps on CD, ariel maps and 3D views! Very good, but at just
under £100 a tad too
expensive! Sarah seemed smitten with a pair of gloves, but at £40
I thought that they were a bit too expensive and dissuaded her, sorry
Mr Cotswold Outdoors! Despite our very late start it was still early
and if we had gone to the Cross Keys in Tebay that had impressed us so
much on the last walk we would have had to wait a few hours before they
served food, I still thought this was a good idea but the general impression
was get in a pub and eat now! So we ended up in Ye Olde Golden Lion (I
think) again. Cheap food that wasn't that bad but it left us somewhat
disappointed after our visits to the Cross Keys in Tebay add the Black
Bull (I think) in Coniston.
So that was the last walk of 2003. A very wet, windy
day that should have been spent anywhere else but on a fell side in
the Lake District! We all learned something today, about our equipment,
our medical conditions (well I did!) , the weather, my Plan B's and
the prices of equipment in Keswick! John knew that all of his waterproofs
(Berghaus) were old and did not really work anymore, my new £60 Sprayway waterproof
over trousers were not totally waterproof either! This got me to thinking
that these manufactures should rename their products to " waterproof-ish" or "will
help slightly" or " won't stop you getting wet, but will make you think
they will if it rains", but then again I can't remember the last time
I walked in such poor conditions!
I think that I was the only one to actually enjoy today's walk, apart
from my feet that caused a visit back to the doctors and being told off
for stopping taking the pills and potions that had obviously been working,
I had actually enjoyed it! Maybe I should have said "no walking today due to the weather" but
I felt the need to" bag" another fell. I am convinced that you have to go through
days like today to really appreciate the good days even more! Maybe that is
selfish but now I am looking forwards to that time when there is snow on the
fells, or the long hot days when you think it is too hot to walk!
Normally I have a good excuse or two if I take too long to write up
the details of any walks that we do. This time I have a proper one !
Charlotte, my daughter, had an unfortunate incident with her new horse
that left her in hospital having a 3 hour operation on her knee, 6 days
in hospital, at least 4 weeks in a full length foot to groin plaster
cast and god knows how many weeks of physio! She had managed to break
for kneecap, tear the cruiciate ligaments away from the bone and needed
her kneecap wiring together and her ligaments stapling to the bone!
No more walking for me (or Charlotte
for a while!) So I look forwards
to the new year and all that it will bring. Hopefully Charlotte will
be soon up and about and I can get out on the fells! On the up side my
son Matthew is starting to take an interest in what I have been doing
as well as his football so he wants to go and climb some Mountains and
go camping again with me as well! 2004 is going to be a busy year as
I want to take Matthew up on the fells (I am thinking
Holme Fell and the like) and one of my sisters friends turns out
to be a secret walker as well (I am thinking the
Outlying Fells here!) So all in all I can't
wait for 2004, a new year, hopefully no injury's and lots more walking! |
