Rombald’s Moor

Monday 2 March

Since Mick first joined me on my Marilyning quest at the beginning of December, snow has featured in 20 of his Marilyn-walks out of 37. Mick claims that I choose to go out when the weather turns arctic. I reckon it’s Mick that causes the change in the weather*. Either way, it was no surprise to wake up in Halifax this morning to find a white world outside, with heavy snow falling.

Happily, the snow had stopped falling by the time Colin had had his annual health check and we had driven to Rombald’s Moor, so it was mainly in sunshine (but with a strong, cold wind on our backs) that we yomped the not-quite-a-mile from our parking place up to the top of the Moor. It was with that strong, cold wind in our faces that we ambled back.

Why the yomp there and the amble back? Well, we set out from Whetstone Gate on a track along the south side of a wall and, when that track expired at the mast, we expected to find some sort of a path or trod. None could be found, and that seemed odd, as there’s almost always a trod (at the very least) next to a wall and surely we couldn’t be unique in our choice of starting point for this top. It took me a while to think to look on the other side of the wall, and sure enough, there lay the answer – on the other side lay a flagged motorway of a path.

However, with a wall and a line of barbed wire between us and it, we had to continue yomping through heather (periodically plunging a foot into a pool of iced-water, in my case) until a crossing place presented itself.

Even with the yomping, there was no huffing and puffing required. Colin had done most of the work for us, so we only had 100’ or so of up to get to the trig…

…from where there were good views to be had (not that this snap really demonstrates that fact):

Of course, we did follow the flagstones back to Colin, where I decided that I hadn’t walked far enough, so left Mick to sit in Colin for a quarter of an hour, with the request that he stop and pick me up on his way down the road, which bumped my mileage for the day up to a whole 2.75 miles.

With more snow forecast for tonight, it made sense to go from there to park ourselves in our car park for tomorrow’s walk and spend the night there. That plan was thwarted when we found the little lane containing that car park to be closed. That led to us driving further north than we had intended (no great hardship when the journey is along Wharfedale on a sunny-but-wintry day), which in turn has led me to think that if we’ve come this far north (to Threshfield) we may as well go a bit further north still, which in turn means that we will be walking a couple of hills tomorrow which didn’t feature in the plan for this trip at all.

(*Some might just say “It’s winter; you’re walking up hills – what do you expect?”)