One summer - Traverse of Black Hill...

Claire had a couple of days off and it was nice to go out for a long walk on one of them - our first decent walk for a while to be honest.

  Claire and I parked at Dovestones and set off up the road towards the Chew Reservoir. This was actually over half the ascent for the walk as the Chew is the highest reservoir in England. Once there, we set off on the path that follows the right edge of the reservoir and intersects the Pennine Way. The first bit of the path was pretty clear as can be seen from the shot - some bits were less clear. Despite the heatwave of the last couple of months there had been enough rain to ensure that Claire was able to work on her bog-leaping skills......there is quite a lot to be said for doing this in winter - although how easy it would be to find the path would be debatable.

The two paths meet at Laddow Rocks - a great moorland grit climbing area that I hadn't been to before - it certainly looked impressive enough to make a trip worthwhile. Oddly, despite being so remote, it was one of the first of the grit crags to be climbed on in the period between the wars. This was largely down to access issues than anything else, with the land around the Eastern Edges being privately owned and kept for shooting etc.

Having had lunch, we followed the Pennine Way as it climbed Black Hill. Higher up the path is paved - I had never been on Black Hill before, however all reports said that prior to it's paving it was a nuclear wasteland of bogs and groughs. The paving is pretty unsightly, however it seems essential to trying to manage the erosion as well as make a walk halfway enjoyable, rather than just an obstacle course of bog-jumping etc.

Laddow Rocks

From the summit of Black Hill, we had some options. One was to go across country on a path that was supposed to exist and end up on highpoint of the 'Isle of Skye' road (no idea why it is called that!!) From there it was a couple of km walk on the road down to a car-park where we could drop down to the reservoir and collect the car. The path didn't exactly look obvious (to put it mildly), so we elected to follow the PW to Wessenden Head, which added another 3km or so to the road walk.

The path down was actually lovely, with good views towards Marsden and the Calder Valley. The flagstones did make for some pounding on the soles of the feet - which was only exacerbated by the road walk. Interesingly, arriving at where we would have come out had we taken our original path, there was no sign of it. I must explore this further as it would be interesting to see where it starts from/finishes and how 'bad' it is in places....must be a strange form of masochism. The road walk wasn't great - however we did eventually arrive at Binn Green, from where we could descend to Dovestones and back to the car. The walk was about 11 miles, which we both needed - and it was also good that my chest and cough felt fine - encouraging at least.