| Naughtberry Hill and Brown Haw - Sat 19th Jan 2008 | |
Today's walk starts from West Burton in the Yorkshire Dales, It is a lengthy ridgewalk which takes us over Naughtberry Hill to Buckden Pike, then across to Brown Haw and finally down to the valley bottom at Walden Head where a car has been strategically placed to aid our return to West Burton. |
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| West Burton | |
| Leaving West Burton we follow the path SW alongside Little Beck for about 0.5km until we reach this old barn. |  |
| We cross the beck at this point and
follow the path signposted Forelands - A cottage at the
edge of the forest on Forelands Rigg. We pass through a stile and follow the path up through the trees for a short distance until we emerge to a scene of devastation where a section of the forest has recently been harvested. We make our way up through the mud and tangled roots beside the remains of an old wall until we reach a stile which we cross to join a boggy path which leads us along the edge of the main forest. |
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| Looking back at the devastated forest floor. |  |
| We follow the side of the forest steadily
climbing for about 1 km until we reach a stile where the
path leads off to the left and a wall comes in from the
right. At this point we leave the forest, cross the wall and head up Wasset Fell End seen here in the picture. |
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| The views looking back from Wasset Fell
End are tremendous. Here can be seen on the left behind the forest - Penhill and the Height of Hazely and on the right - Harland Hill. Gerry and I had walked these hills a few weeks previously. Today's walk culminates on Brown Haw which is an extension SW of the same ridge as these fells. |
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| Heading SW we reach the old shooting hut on Wasset Fell, this is an area of old lead mine workings and disused shafts. |  |
| The going is tough over these fells as
there are no virtually no paths and it is very boggy. After about 0.5 km we pick up a wall and a line of grouse butts, we follow its remains until it dwindles and we climb up onto Naughtberry Hill - a very boggy non descript sort of place at 573 m. Made up for only by the scenic views from the surrounding fells! Following the boggy track heading SW all the time we descend then ascend again passing a row of grouse butts on the right until we pick up the fence leading towards Buckden Pike. |
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| The cairn on Wasset Fell - 503m | |
| We follow the fence then the wall in the
latter stages up onto Buckden Pike at 702m. After a brief respite we follow the wall south until we reach the memorial cross.We then follow the wall SE for a further 1/3 km until it turns sharp right at which point we survey our next objective - Brown Haw. The terrain falls steeply away to the east here, we are at the head of the valley as we decide to take a short cut across the bogs to join the fence line running NE along the ridge to Brown Haw. |
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| Buckden Pike 702m | |
| We join the ridge running NE after
skirting around Windle Side and after a couple of
kilometers we reach the summit of Brown Haw. Buckden Pike
can be seen in the distance. Light is fading fast now so we don't waste much time and we now take a bearing NW straight off the fell and down to the valley bottom at Walden Head where our car was waiting. A hard walk over trackless boggy terrain, rewarded by good visability and some splendid views Total ascent approx 630 metres. Distance approx 11.5 miles. |
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| Brown Haw 584m | |
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