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Autumnal Howgill wanderings from Howgill Church

Autumnal Howgill wanderings from Howgill Church


Postby martin.h » Sat Sep 26, 2020 5:43 pm

Hewitts included on this walk: Calders

Date walked: 19/09/2020

Time taken: 5.15

Distance: 16 km

Ascent: 1020m

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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 :wink: 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 :D

Looking for somewhere to park the car other than Sedbergh, which, from past experience can be busy, especially on a Saturday :roll: 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 :D, it's always good to ask people in the know :clap:

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 :shock: 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 :lol:

We arrived at the church, there were no other cars parked up, always good to get there early :D got ready for the off, the sun was shining and it was nice and warm :D

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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.
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with views to Grayrigg
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When we got further along the track we left it around SD644950

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and visited Seat Knott, nice views (I forgot to get me camera out so no photos :? ) then descended to the ford at SD650957.

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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 :D

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Mind you, we did get these :D
Looking back to Seat Knott
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The climb up to Bram Rigg Top starts to get steeper just above the sheepfold but its not tiring, just a Howgill plod :lol:

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Looking down onto Calf Beck, steep gullies, it looks pretty impressive :D
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Soon we were on the summit, there's a little cairn, about four stones :lol: I took a few photos, had a cereal bar, then it was off to Great Dummacks.
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Calf Top
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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 :lol:
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after a snack it was back the way we came then off to Calders.
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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,
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I took some summit views piccies, we had a munch, then we set off for Arant Haw.
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Distant Lake District
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Sleeping Elephants
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We started to meet quite a lot of people on our way over, in fact, it was getting decidedly busy :lol: 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 :shock:

Looking back to Calders, it was very windy down here :shock:
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Arant Haw gave good views back to Calders and the Western Howgills,

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Lake District mountains away in the distance
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Green and pleasant land
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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 :D

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.

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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.

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Arant Haw
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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.

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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 :roll:

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

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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" :shock: :lol:

Yarlside and Wandale Hill next, another day in the planning, should be fun :D

Cheers.
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martin.h
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Re: Autumnal Howgill wanderings from Howgill Church

Postby johnkaysleftleg » Sun Sep 27, 2020 7:54 am

Fantastic day to out and about in the Howgills, I had no idea about the church as a place to park so that's one to utilize in future. Really rather odd that somebody would attempt to block a public footpath therefore making it more likely walkers would have to stray from it to get where they were going. Still it's a rarity in the Howgills in my experience.
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johnkaysleftleg
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Re: Autumnal Howgill wanderings from Howgill Church

Postby trailmasher » Sun Sep 27, 2020 7:53 pm

Another decent Howgill report and pics there MH :clap: and a superb weather day to get this one in the bag. I think that Winder must be the Latrigg of the Howgills as it is so handy to reach from Sedbergh :lol:
Crook, Sickers Fell and Knott seems like a tidy little round to sweep up one day :wink:
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trailmasher
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Re: Autumnal Howgill wanderings from Howgill Church

Postby martin.h » Mon Sep 28, 2020 6:02 pm

johnkaysleftleg wrote:Fantastic day to out and about in the Howgills, I had no idea about the church as a place to park so that's one to utilize in future. Really rather odd that somebody would attempt to block a public footpath therefore making it more likely walkers would have to stray from it to get where they were going. Still it's a rarity in the Howgills in my experience.


It does seem a bit strange to deny access to marked paths, even the gate leading onto the track to the road was tied :roll:
it makes you wonder if they've had issues with people in recent history.

trailmasher wrote:Another decent Howgill report and pics there MH :clap: and a superb weather day to get this one in the bag. I think that Winder must be the Latrigg of the Howgills as it is so handy to reach from Sedbergh :lol:
Crook, Sickers Fell and Knott seems like a tidy little round to sweep up one day :wink:


It's funny you should suggest that little round TM, I was looking at that or something similar as a wander during the winter months, you know what they say, "great minds think alike" :lol: That's been put on the agenda :D
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martin.h
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