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With the forecast promising a decent day on Saturday we thought we had to take advantage and get out.
Where would we go? that wasn't a hard question to answer, really, we've been spending a bit of time in the Howgills just recently
trying to get around the main tops of these lovely hills and, with only a handful to do, I had a nice route planned to get us onto the remaining higher tops on the Western and South Western side
Looking for somewhere to park the car other than Sedbergh, which, from past experience can be busy, especially on a Saturday
I toyed with the idea of parking somewhere along Howgill Lane, not sure of where, trailmasher helped me out and suggested a small layby next to Howgill Church, great stuff, it tied in nicely with my planned hills, cheers trailmasher, it was better than perfect
, it's always good to ask people in the know
We got off fairly early, for us it's M62, M61 and M6, off it Junc 37, easy enough, I decided not to go into Sedburgh at all, so, to get to the church, I used Slacks Lane off the A684, that was fun
narrow enough to to make the bushes breath in as we passed and only a couple of makeshift passing places, I'm not usually bothered about these kind of roads but this is a good 'un, crikey
We arrived at the church, there were no other cars parked up, always good to get there early
got ready for the off, the sun was shining and it was nice and warm
Our planned hills for today:-
Bram Rigg Top
Calders
Great Dummacks
Arant Haw
Winder
We walked back along Howgill Lane as far a Birkhaw and took the signed track for Bram Rigg Top.
This is a nice and easy start to the walk.
with views to Grayrigg
When we got further along the track we left it around SD644950
and visited Seat Knott, nice views (I forgot to get me camera out so no photos
) then descended to the ford at SD650957.
We took the path up Bram Rigg that's marked on the map, it would have been better on the quad bike track marked on the map that goes up the ridge to Seevy Rigg, the views back will probably be better, next time, maybe
Mind you, we did get these
Looking back to Seat Knott
The climb up to Bram Rigg Top starts to get steeper just above the sheepfold but its not tiring, just a Howgill plod
Looking down onto Calf Beck, steep gullies, it looks pretty impressive
Soon we were on the summit, there's a little cairn, about four stones
I took a few photos, had a cereal bar, then it was off to Great Dummacks.
Calf Top
We joined the main path from Calf Top to Calders and left it at around SD671963, there is a path here and it joins up with the path leading from Calders.
The walk over to Great Dummacks is very easy, there's hardly any descent and not much ascent and there's a quad track all the way.
There's nothing marking the summit
mind you, that's the Howgills for you
after a snack it was back the way we came then off to Calders.
We hadn't seen many people up to now, we met our first fellow walkers to say hello to on Calders, there's a large cairn on the top, probably one of the biggest in the Howgills,
I took some summit views piccies, we had a munch, then we set off for Arant Haw.
Distant Lake District
Sleeping Elephants
We started to meet quite a lot of people on our way over, in fact, it was getting decidedly busy
Walkers, mountain bikers and fell runners, all out enjoying the weather, except for the annoying wind, it was quite exposed on the walk over to Arant Haw, the wind was quite strong, in places the gusts made it difficult to progress
Looking back to Calders, it was very windy down here
Arant Haw gave good views back to Calders and the Western Howgills,
Lake District mountains away in the distance
Green and pleasant land
I had thought of visiting Crook from here but the wind was becoming a bit annoying so decided to head for Winder and leave Crook for another day
This part of the Howgills is very popular with walkers, in fact today was the busiest we've seen them, quite a contrast to the parts we've been in during our past explorations, the path is a motorway compared to the grassy quad bike tracks you find on the less visited fells.
We've been able to immerse ourselves in the remote parts and get that pioneering feeling which is rare in the Dales and Lakes.
The summit of Winder has a trig point an a cairn with a circular engraved view indicator naming the hills and how far away they are that you can see from the summit, it's quite interesting.
Arant Haw
Winder was busy, there were quite a few people around, some at the summit and a few relaxing on the flat grassy areas around the summit.
The views down to Sedburgh were nice as were the views across to the main Howgills, the Dales, Pennines and the Lakes.
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We stayed on the summit for a while, admiring the views then we set off down the west ridge aiming in the general direction of Craggstones and Crosedale.
We left the path from Winder at around SD644933 aiming for the path marked on the map at Craggstones.
We found that ok, it's marked as a Dales footpath on a gatepost and it is on the ground, however, we got the feeling we weren't welcome, the first gate had a large boulder in front of it to make it difficult to open so we had to squeeze through then, especially around Crosedale all the gates were tied shut with strong rope so you couldn't gain access to the path (which had those little way markers on the gateposts) or Howgill Lane, we were forced to cross a couple of fields and eventually find our way climbing over fences, which doesn't feel right, to get to a stile over a wall at around SD638941
If we'd known it was going to be difficult we'd have continued on the path from Winder which leads you down to the road, ah well, we'll know next time
We arrived back on Howgill Lane more or less as planned (SD637943) and the short walk back to the church only took about ten minutes.
It's a nice little Church, worth going in for a while
We had a good day except for the access issues, we felt we were doing wrong or trespassing, we kept looking behind us to make sure we weren't being hotly pursued by an irate farmer shouting "gerroff my land"
Yarlside and Wandale Hill next, another day in the planning, should be fun
Cheers.