Will the March wind blow?
Wednesday March 4th. 'An Eponymous Walk' 16 miles. Leader: Nick Halford.
Eleven of us met at Calder Vale Country Club, and set off past the very successful mill producing fine fabrics for the middle east, through Cobble Hey and muddy fields for morning break under the trees of Huds Brook wood.
We zigzagged West, often with Beacon fell in view, to join the river Brock and upstream to Bleasdale. A long stretch of tarmac, sorry about that, to the northeast now, with Fairsnape and Bleasdale fells to the west, through Oakenclough, to a late lunch just beyond Grizedale reservoir.
This walk was described as eponymous, quite erroneously as my name wasn’t in the title at all, but it was at least in the objective, as we now turned west to climb Nicky Nook, where we were rewarded with views of Morecambe bay, Blackpool tower, Heysham power station and the iconic Lancaster M6 service station.
We descended, turning south before Scorton, when a hole in the cloud cover produced dramatic, almost biblical, crepuscular rays, bathing individual fields in light. We moved on down to Grizedale brook and up the very steep opposite bank, then southeast through more mud, via Burns and Kelbrick farms, to a strange path down to Calder Vale again.
The day marked a change in weather and season for me, no rain, no wind, hares running, curlews back on the moors and oystercatchers too, in flocks if not yet separated in their pairs. A slightly harder Wednesday than some, 16 miles and 2200ft of undulating ascent, but plenty of mud as usual.
Thanks to all, especially Pauline for the fine transport, following my own cars ill-timed adventures on a breakdown truck the previous night.
Nick