Coming Into Winter
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| Sunday November 7th. Take Stock of Tosside. 22 hardy souls gathered at the Dog and Partridge, Tosside, despite the awful weather forecast. The route set off through forest tracks but soon took to open access moorland. This gave views of Pen y Ghent, Ingleborough and the Howgills in the distance. John took us over many unknown paths all of which were awash with water from the previous weeks relentless rain. Conditions underfoot were bad but we were very lucky to have a wintery watery sun for 95% of the walk. As the walk progressed we had grand views views of Stocks Reservoir; after descending we stopped at the fisherman's cafe on the far side. After gaining the embankment the route turned once more towards the forest but skirted the outer perimeter to avoid all the cycle tracks. This proved a pleasant return route to the pub. It is worth noting that the Dog and Partridge has its own cafe at the rear of the pub which serves homemade food until a late hour. The pub also has excellent, good value residential accomodation and serves locally produced real ale and homemade food. The club walk is to be adopted by the pub in a series of "walks from your pub door" leaflets. This will help advertise East Lancs LDWA. Viv The Wild Whitworth Wander – Sunday 29 November 2009 Despite an awful weather forecast of wind and rain for most of the day a brave group of ten turned out to test Steve Clark’s reputation of leading tough and extremely muddy walks. With rain threatening the group headed out of Edenfield climbing up towards Cowpe Lowe, then skirting its base to pick up the Rossendale Way. A minor diversion over moorland was made to Top of Leach to visit the trig point there but unfortunately low cloud prevented any reasonable views of the surrounding Lancashire landscape. Undeterred the plucky group headed back to the track and then heading west towards Whitworth traversed the boggy moorland over Meatlowes. Here a potential new member to the East Lancs, Janet, literally ended up in the ‘deep end’ as she sank knee deep in a bog but came up smiling. As the weather conditions continued to deteriorate throughout the morning a brief coffee break was taken giving the opportunity for full waterproofs to be donned before continuing to splash through sodden ground and mud. Pushing on towards the village of Whitworth members of the sailing club were conspicuous by their absence as Cown reservoir was circumnavigated en route toward Brown Wardle Hill. Jake, who for the main part acted as sweep on the day, added to the challenge with Bob by opting to take in the hill itself. The rest of the group contoured round to rendezvous with them on the other side and the reunited group then continued on to St Bartholomew’s Church, Whitworth. Here some respite from the rough weather conditions was found within the grounds behind a high tree lined wall. Once bodies were suitably revitalised with sustenance the group moved on picking up part the Pennine Bridle Way to Bottom Rooley Moor before dropping down on to Naden Reservoirs. Climbing up out of the valley of Naden Brook the 26 wind turbines on Scout Moor, looking quite majestic in the barren open moorland, swirled in and out of the mist. Interestingly the turbines had been facing south west when Steve did his reccy last Sunday but had turned 180° to face into today’s north easterly. One or two sounded as though a drop of oil from the club oil can wouldn’t have gone amiss but otherwise they were eerily silent. A service road was picked up and the progress was made onto Whittle Hill and up to the cross on Whittle Pike. Enjoyment of the magnificent views of the Pennines, Blackstone Edge, the Manchester and Cheshire plains and round to Winter Hill in the west were once again thwarted by the weather and could only be imagined as they were blanketed by a thin curtain of mist. Back onto the Rossendale Way the route passed by Waugh’s Well – this is a spring built to commemorate Edwin Waugh, a Lancashire dialect poet, who lived for a while in a cottage at nearby Fo Edge. Finally a track was picked up to New Hall and the lane just beyond it and the slightly bedraggled but buoyant group arrived back in Edenfield around four just in time to beat the diminishing light and avoiding the need for head torches. Thanks to Sue – she wrote the article for me after interviewing me about the walk. Steve |
