Saturday 13th April 2013
A sunny day walk up Calf Top above Dentdale on the western edge of the Yorkshire Dales
Distance: 20km; Ascent:690m; Mainly sunny, but quite windy; with Colin
Colin and I had been due
to spend the weekend Munro bagging in the southern Highlands, however
the forecast 80-100mph winds for the weekend put us off a bit! Instead
we decided to take advantage of the last of the calm weather this
morning and head out for a day walk a bit closer to home. Therefore
just after 10am we set off walking from the village of Barbon on the
western edge of the Yorkshire Dales, with the intention of climbing the
nearby hill of Calf Top.
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| Barbon church |
It was pleasantly warm as we walked past the village church and entered
the parklands of Barbon Park; in fact it was so warm that I was walking
in a t-shirt with no fleece – a first for 2013! Soon we
left the parkland and began our steep ascent up to the cairn on Eskholme
Pike, with a little bit of optional scrambling on route.
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| The Lune Valley |
 |
| Eskholme Pike |
From here there were good views of the surrounding area, although it was
necessary to don an extra layer as we were now exposed to the easterly
wind. A pleasant ascent on a good grassy path brought us to our first summit of the day:
Castle Knott (Dewey), which was marked by a cairn.
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| Ascending Castle Knott, with views to Crag Hill |
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| Summit of Castle Knott |
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| Calf Top from Castle Knott |
After a short rest here
we pushed on over the slightly boggy col to ascend up to the
trigpoint
and nearby summit cairn on
Calf Top (Marilyn, Dewey), which apparently is only 2cm short of 2000ft! However this didn’t deter Colin as he stood on the trigpoint to make sure his entire body was higher than 2000ft!
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| On Calf Top |
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| Calf Top summit |
There were excellent views from the summit, although it was beginning to get quite windy up here. As
it was now a little after midday we decided that lunch was in order, so
after descending north-eastwards for a few hundred metres we stopped in
the shelter of a wall for a bite to eat. From our lunch
spot we could make out many of the Yorkshire Dales peaks and also the
hazy eastern Lakeland fells to our west, beyond a few wind turbines,
Killington Reservoir and the M6.
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| Heading towards Barkin Top |
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| Descending Barkin Top |
After crossing Birkin
Top, we continued to follow the good path alongside the wall as it
curved round to the north and then the north-west over Long Bank End. By now the sky had pretty much clouded over and it seemed as if rain might be imminent. We continued past many sheep and lambs to reach the end of a minor road at Fellside farm.
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| The Howgills |
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| Dentdale |
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| Long Bank End |
Using a small slither of access land we cut a corner to reach the main A683 road near to a pub. Luckily
we only had just over a kilometre to walk along this busy road before
we turned off onto the High Road, which was a minor road running
parallel to the main road all the way to Barbon. After a further couple of kilometres it began to rain, initially quite lightly before a short heavier bust. Luckily however this soon stopped so we didn’t don our waterproofs!
We reached Barbon and
hence the car just before 3:30pm after a pleasant hill walk of a little
over 5 hours, and we only saw a handful of other walkers out on the
hill! Soon after setting off south the rain began again,
this time in earnest, and we were very pleased that we weren’t still out
walking!
N.B. 03/06/13 - Post date updated to actual date of walk, i.e. 13/04/13 (from 17/04/13). Link to trigpoint also added.
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