4 Deweys kicked in the Howgills

So, these 4 Howgill Deweys are the remnants of our last unsuccessful attempt a few weeks ago. A simple route involving a few steep slopes and longish unpathed sections.

We started at a small place called Bowderdale and set of on a long fairly straight ridge. The weather was cool, slight breeze and cloudyish. West Fell was soon approached and bagged before we headed to Hazelgill Knott.  We then reversed slightly and descended by an un-named gill to Langdale (not the more famous Lake District Langdale). 

After a 10 minute stop for a veggie sandwich (for me that is), we walked alongside West Grain for a few hundred metres to stop at a steep but short climb onto Simon's Seat. After descending that, a simple traverse around Docker Knott lead to the final Dewey - Hand Lake.  Now the fun began!

The first problem we encountered was Langdale Beck. A quad bike track basically encouraged us to look at a crossing fairly near to it so as to help climb a fairly steep hill side. We spent at least 10 minutes trying to find a suitable crossing point. Mountainmanjunior, finally and carefully crossed upstream. I found a nice crossing that was narrow, but deeper. I only had 3 large stones to use, but the first one was very mossy....yes! I slipped and ended shin deep in the water. Luckily I had a trekking pole to steady me from not slipping head first.

The look of horror on mountainmanjuniors face was either concern for my well being...or more likely... not having a camera ready and taking a photo! Well, it's only wet feet. After this my feet squelched a bit, I'm just thankful it wasn't winter.

The next problem was the straightish walk back to Bowderdale. The map showed we required to walk south of the farmers walled fields, but we soon got entrapped in many of them. Luckily only 1 barbed wire stone wall and 1 rusty gate need to be climbed.

Looking at the gpx file on Memory Map shows a fairly good straight route back despite the walls and finding suitable gates.  Not a bad walk.

Howlup in the Howgills

Teamed up with Mountainmanjunior for a 6 dewey bag in the Howgills, however, things didn't go according to plan!

Original plan was to do 10 Dewey Hills in 1 long hot, sunny summer's day, but getting time away and with persistant bad weather ment this wasn't feasible. So, I planned a shorter vistit to the Howgills with a 9 hour maximum time budget including travelling. There was 2 routes, a longer west route and a short east. The west route incorporated The Calf, a Trail magazine 100 hill and one Mountainmanjunior hadn't climbed before.

The weather didn't look good to start off with but by the time we parked and set off from Cross Keys near Sedbergh it wasn't too bad. Cloud level looked to be about 500 metres. We climbed alongside a full flowing Cautley Spout waterfall and followed a wet path to The Calf.

At the top visablity wasn't good as we set off in a North-West direction heading towards a Dewey called Linghaw. THIS is were it all began to go wrong. 100 metres from setting off from The Calf's summit the track split into 2, but for some reason we didn't see it and followed the White Fell path which slowly went at 90 degrees to the path we should have taken. It should be mentioned that the main path doesn't exist on the 25k or 50k maps, just a district boundary line shows.

It was 15 minutes after leaving The Calf's summit I realised something didn't figure out. We agreed to go down a bit further and try and find exactly where we were. Recalculations came left and right through my head, but a decision had to be taken. I decided to continue down, pick up a well worn path and skirt along Fell Head.

I felt a bit sorry for Mountainmanjunior as it was a long drop down, but we had a nice sheepfold at Long Rigg Beck to have Lunch in, which if we had stayed high up we wouldn't have ;-)

Having a good look at the GPS, I think we might only have lost less the 100 metres height, if so that wasn't a great deal. Eventually we arrived at Linghaw and quickly moved onto the next Dewey, Uldale Head. The path leading to this hill was very narrow in places on steep sided hill. The wind started to become strong and unsettling in places. A steep path lead up to Uldale Head. Near the top the weather started to come down and at the top a full blast of strong wind and rain caught us out.

Back down it was clear that I had miscalculated the route completely and we were running out of time and energy. The other 4 Deweys were now thrown out of the window and it was now a question of the quickest way home!

This was the worst possible place to decide to abandon the route. There was 2 ways back to the car. My thought was to cut through 2 dales, but this ment 2 steep descents and ascents, it would have been much shorter and quicker, but much more energy sapping. Mountainmanjunior, looked at the map and decided the best route for him was to follow the ridge back to the The Calf, so that's the route we went.

Following this route in the cloud wasn't easy and we soon got a little lost. Again, we failed to see a track leading to Bush Howe. My GPS showed we were about 400 metres past the Bush Howe path. The contour map on my GPS kept coming up with an error "Void, no map data" so I wasn't able to program a waypoint. The actual GPS data was correct so it was the contouring software at fault. We lost 13 minutes looking for the correct path (this would have been crucial later on in the day for me - read the end paragraph).

Now was a long boggy trot back to the Calf and down the same route to Cautley Spout as before. At the top of the waterfall the rain came down heavily and soaked all my gear - Scotland all again!

My home by 5pm deadline was way way off the mark. It was now 5:45pm back at the car. I didn't have a rest and as soon as Mountainmanjunior packed up his gear, off we went.

I dropped Mountainmanjunior off at his house as the clouds started to really turn black. At Easington Services the heavens opened up - possible the worst for a few years. The traffic on the A19 was down to 30mph, the road was flooded and visiblity was down to 20 metres at best. For approx 10 miles the traffic was almost at a crawl, many drivers heading into laybys with emergency lights flashing. Even a Range Rover was unable to overtake me. That was SCARY!

The Monkside Dewey habit

On top of Monkside.

So, it was a bright sunny day. Plan was to bag a Dewey hill in Kielder Forest. 

I started off just south of Kielder castle and cycled past Gowanburn. It was here that something didn't "feel" right with the route, but I carried on. Later I found that the Border County Ride track had been re-pathed closer to Bakethin Reservoir then my old map showed.

The forest tracks wasn't a problem until I stated the climb up Pleshetts towards Wainhope, then a very stoney track made cycling hard and it was soon off and giving the bike a push; when the pushing stopped and the cycling began it was in the granny gears. 

The final section to the top of Monkside was steep track and loose gravel making pushing the bike even harder them pedelling it. What an unusual top Monkside is! It's paved with blocking and has electric hook-up points. To all intents and purpose it's a caravan site!  Strange.

The bike ride back was fast, furious and dangerous ;-) It was in some sections here that I found the "proper" Border Ride Route.  All told about 4 hours in the sun, but I was knackered.

From Monkside overlooking towards Pell Fell.