Adventures in wet boots

Since we haven’t had too much rain lately, I thought I’d visit the Hitching Stone on Keighley Moor yesterday, which entails crossing some rough and boggy country. So I prepared myself for some bog-trotting. 

I parked at Morkin Bridge at the head of the lovely wooded valley of Newsholme Dean, and headed up the lane before turning up a gated track at Middle Slippery Ford Farm towards the moor. The track crossed a couple of sheep-inhabited fields before reaching the open moor by a shooting hut. These sheep were very persistent - instead of running away, the little woolly feckers actually tried to chase me as a flock. Slightly disconcerting. 
I passed around the back of the shooting hut and followed a rough path over a plank footbridge over a beck and uphill towards a drystone wall. As I turned to follow the wall across the moor I left the path, but burned off heather made the walking fairly easy at first up the slope. Overhead a curlew cried, adding to the atmosphere.  The terrain changed to old, deep heather with ankle-twisting tussocks and peaty sections, making for harder going. Eventually a sketchy, boggy path emerged, though it was necessary to deviate from this in places to avoid wet ground. After a little more trogging among flowering new growth heather, the Hitching Stone came into view.

Looking a little like a giant’s fist viewed from the south-east, the Hitching Stone is a huge cuboid of gritstone 29′ by 25′ and 21′ high, probably dumped here by a glacier from Earl Crag a mile away across the moor. Another explanation is that it was ‘hitched’ here across the valley by a witch because it was spoiling her view, using the hole in its west face. Since I had bothered to trail out to visit it (and am possibly still a twelve year old at heart), I climbed up the south side, a pretty easy scramble with plenty of decent hand/footholds. There was a large ‘rockpool’ about the size and depth of a good sized bathtub full of rainwater at the top, and some impressively wide views from the middle of nowhere, across Keighley Moor’s sea of heather, Pendle Hill to the west, and Craven as far as the southern peaks of the Dales were visible. It was a nice viewpoint and I took a few pics before scrambling back down the rock and heading across the bog towards Wainman’s Pinnacle on the horizon.

The route across the moor towards Earl Crag was soggy to say the least, there was a path of sorts but it was very sloppy and debris had been used in places to provide footholds through the mire. This is where a pair of trekking poles come in handy for vaulting over channels of slop.  Across the road was a small parking area for Wainman’s Pinnacle, where I passed the only other human I’d encountered since the start of my walk, a bloke walking his dogs. The ground here was considerably drier as I climbed the hill to reach Earl Crag, and Wainman’s Pinnacle, a pointy 19th century monument which with its neighbour at the other end of the crag, Lund’s Tower, are known locally as the Salt and Pepper Pots. From the edge of the crag there is a great view of South Craven, with Cowling and Glusburn far below. After a quick breather I followed the path along the edge of the crag along to Lund’s Tower.

I wandered along the brow of Earl Crag enjoying the panoramic view and spring-ish breezes before reaching Lund’s Tower. I went inside the monument and climbed a spiral stone staircase, watching my head in the dark, to the battlements where I took an obligatory pic of Glusburn and Crosshills before returning to ground level and dropping down the side of the crag to a surfaced road, which I followed a little way downhill towards Cowling before turning off down a farm track in the direction of Sutton-in-Craven.

[Show as slideshow]

A wander through the fields followed, with a scramble through brambles and over a beck required at one point where the path disappeared. This stage of the walk seemed much longer than it was, thanks to playing hunt-the-stile at every field boundary - very pleasant but hard work. I was rewarded by the sight of a couple of hares loping through the grass, and the sun was shining so I can’t moan too much - I’m just not good with farmland.  After a long steep uphill trog and pointing in the right direction by a helpful farmer, I reached a mobile phone mast at the edge of the moor, accessed by scrambling over a couple of gates - some folk in those parts don’t seem to welcome walkers on their land, judging by the tendency for rights of ways to be blocked or hard to follow. Meh. Anyway there was a slightly grubby picnic area here on the site of an old delph (a small quarry), with a holder for a flaming beacon and a flagpole, overlooking the village of Sutton-in-Craven. I stopped here and wolfed a couple of peanut butter and cheese butties before heading up the lane towards the brow of the hill, past a small bridge over a small waterfall, before turning off over a stile through a set of muddy fields, cutting the corner to another quiet lane. After a little way I turned off along an even quieter lane, heading across Sutton Moor back down to Slippery Ford, and the car. Passing through the picturesque hamlet of Slippery Ford I paused to take a couple of pics, amused by its sleepy resemblance to Postman Pat’s territory. It was an enjoyable if rather strenuous outing, six and a half miles with around 1100 feet of ascent (not counting Lund’s Tower and the Hitching Stone, obviously )

As a bonus, I’ve done a route map this time. 

Tags: Hikes