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The Pennine Way | |
| Introduction Edale Crowden Globe Farm Slack Top Ponden Thornton Malham Horton Hawes Tan Hill |
 Stoodley Pike from above Mankinholes |
Bowes Middleton Langdon Beck Dufton Garrigill Alston Greenhead Twice Brewed Bellingham Bryness Uswayford |
The next morning I walked up the road past Globe Farm to a junction and then back-tracked to the PW. The weather was overcast and misty but at least there was no rain. By then I was walking with a couple of pairs of socks on in an attempt to cushion my blisters and let them dry out. This seemed to work since over the next 2 days the blisters disappeared.
Standedge and Millstone Edge gave good dry walking with unfulfilled promises of views into the industrial and heavily populated Midlands. At the start of Millstone Edge, there was an OS pillar with a memorial to a local poet and writer, Ammon Wrigley (1861-1946), attached to a square boulder nearby. A little further is the Dinner Stone with its curious flattish top. The dry walking continued from the junction at Northern Rotcher, N and then NW over Oldgate Moss and Little Moss to the A640 road . Keep to the path since Haigh Gutter (a stream in a steep-sided gully) has only one good ford. The road was joined at an old packhorse trail travelling to the east.
From the road, the path climbed slightly to join a wall and become soggy. At the end of the wall I crossed a slight depression and climbed over White Hill where the path became dry and sandy as it dropped down a ridge (Axletree Edge) to the A672 (an old turnpike road). The lay-by here often has a tea-van with refreshments for the traveller but not on this day. Passing the Windy Hill television mast, I soon came to the M62 motorway. This was quite a shock to the eyes (my ears heard it long ago) after the desolate moorland they had become used to. However a footbridge took me quickly over the busy traffic and I soon lost sight of the motorway.
If you like bogs then you would have enjoyed the climb up to Blackstone Edge - the ground was suitably wet and muddy and the path wound its way through large peat hags. I found it enjoyable because I knew that it was the last patch of bog until the last couple of days. The boulders on top of Blackstone Edge were impressive and provided good, firm walking in contrast to the preceding bogs. Note the OS pillar perched high (472 metres) upon the top of one of the boulders. I dropped down to join a 'Roman' road (Dhoul's Pavement, the flagstoned surface is probably of medieval origin). I followed its cobbled surface steeply downhill for half a kilometre before turning right along Broad Head Drain (a concrete channel) to rejoin the PW.
The drain lead easily north along the slopes to a disused quarry and a short descent to the Halifax Road (A58). Lunch was at the White House Inn (highly recommended) where I joined a number of fellow PW walkers. I meet up with the same group at various spots until Blue Cap Hall at Bowes when they passed me (for the Blackton Youth Hostel at Baldersdale).
A wide, level and sandy track was joined along the road at Blackstone Edge Reservoir. Here I basically put my head down and raced along for 4 km until the turn-off along Warland Drain. There were some misty views to the west over the headwaters of the River Roch. The turn-off was marked by an old bus stop sign - don't wait for a bus here! From the drain my next landmark was visible - Stoodley Pike - a 38 metre high spike of a monument to the defeat of Napoleon. It is the second monument on the site since the first one was blown over in a storm.
The Pike was reached by a clear path along the Calderdale Valley edge passing over the flagged footpath at Withens Gate. The youth hostel at Mankinholes is down this path. Another long distance path, the Calderdale Way, also goes through Withens Gate. It can be followed to accommodation in the town of Todmorden. For the water-depleted there is a spring next to the path about 100 metres past the monument.
The route dropping down into Calderdale was pleasant - some farmland before joining a walled track through a beautiful little English birch wood. The floor of the valley was a bit of a shock since it was crowded with a railway, canal, busy road and the River Calder. The only good thing about the valley floor is the chance to catch a bus to the delights of Hebden Bridge. I crossed these obstacles as quick as I could and climbed out of the valley along a steep, cobbled track. I soon came across a defect in my planning - it was not wise to end a 25 kilometre walk with a steep ascent out of Calderdale together with the fall and rise through the Colden Valley beyond. There was some compensation in the scenic Colden Valley with a scattering of trees and an old packhorse bridge. I certainly found a few new muscles as I left the PW along the road to Slack Top and my B&B. My evening meal was at a nice pub in Heptonstall (1 kilometre away along a quiet road).
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