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20 Yorkshire Walks with only one map OL21

Kindle book - My Lanzarote. 10 walks and a personal view

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20 Walks in the Yorkshire Dales with only one map OL2

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Blog (2019)

Blog updates are only on an "ad hoc" basis when I have something to say and will not be particularly regular. Latest entries first.

24 December 2019

Finally finished removing the (in many cases) moribund links to the Met. Office (see Blog entry for 18 October 2019).

Due to various things happening in my personal life (none unpleasant just requiring input), not to mention the weather, my walking rate has slipped a bit this year. Lets hope 2020 provides more opportunities.

I hope all visitors to the site have a great Christmas and New Year.

29 October 2019

Clearly recent exceptional rains have produced some equally exceptional floodwater issues and I have had two instances reported to me today where walkers have had to curtail/amend my routes to take avoiding action. I have incorporated warnings on the relevant walks. Obviously, it is impossible for me personally to keep abreast of all changing issues on my walks and I am grateful to anyone who lets me know of such matters so that I can amend or note my routes accordingly, so keeping the directions relevant to fellow walkers.

18 October 2019

To help users of my walks to plan their walks, I have included a link to weather forecasts from the Met Office on each of my walks, so that there was an instant reference to the relevant area. Unfortunately, the Met Office keep changing the way their site works and older links have become moribund.

I cannot keep up with the changes because with over 300 walks on my site, the effort involved revisiting the walks each time is too much. I do want a life as well!

I regret therefore that I will no longer be offering this facility and as time permits, will be deleting all the weather related links on my site.

21 July 2019

Free bacon sandwiches! Not many blog entries enable you to start with that statement. However The Inn at South Stainley is making such an offer via their Walker’s Breakfast Club, on selected Saturdays from August 2019. The hope is you will make a donation to their chosen carity, the hospice Martin House. For more details see my South Stainley Circular walk, under North Yorkshire.

10 June 2019

Some of my walks involve walks by rivers and canals. You may know that these form part of some 2000 miles of canals and river navigations in England and Wales are cared for by the Canal & River Trust, the waterways and wellbeing charity. Working with Coventry University, the charity has published a detailed analysis of the plastics and other litter found in its waterways.  The research, which reviewed data from 25 locations, found that plastics now account for 59% of waste found along its canals.  It estimates that 570,000 items of plastic reach the world’s oceans each year via its waterways. With the help of local communities this figure could be drastically cut.

The vast majority of the litter found along and in the canals each year is potentially recyclable or could be re-used in creative and innovative ways.

The Trust is calling on every visitor to its waterways to make their own small contribution to help keep them clear of plastics, whether by picking up and recycling a piece each time they visit, joining the Trust’s growing band of volunteers, or even adopting a short stretch of their local canal with friends, neighbours or colleagues. If every visitor picked up and recycled just one piece of plastic each time they visit, the canals and rivers could be plastic free in a year.

Further information can be found on the Canal & River Trust website.

9 April 2019

This week, I saw an item on the BBC Breakfast programme about colour blindness. It was very interesting and in particular, I had never realised the complex nature of the condition having previously thought it was just about red and green problems. In fact, I had not given it serious thought at all, until I saw the programme. This prompted me to comment on Twitter that my use of "traffic lights" to differentiate between levels of difficulty on my walks, was probably giving sufferers  problems and I said I thought I would incorporate R, A and G initials in the symbols to help. This prompted a number of responses from sufferers suggesting:

different shapes;
different sybols within the shapes, such as ticks, excamation marks:
1,2, and 3 to denote difficulty;
changing colours.

However, I also had a response from the ColourBlindAwareness.org website. This is a really interesting website and I would urge anyone using colours where the colour is important to have a look at it. Their recommendation was that the colours were fine and that R, A and G added would do the job. Some other responders also thought this.

I wanted to keep to the principle of traffic lights because that is what visitors to my site are used to and a number have commented over the years that they like it. It also struck me that once you know the traffic light system is in use, you are unlikely to forget it whereas use of different shapes, miscellaneous symbols etc is likely to require visitors to undertake revision every time they visit the site. If I was only just starting the site, I suppose I could have graded walks with increasing numbers of symbols to indicate difficulty (or ease) but this would now mean revising every walk individually, whereas the R, A, G only involve three changes to the symbols themselves. As there are over 300 walks, this is pretty much more than I can cope with!

So, R, A, G it is. I hope this helps.

25 April 2019

Last Saturday 20 April 2019, having decided not to try to motor anywhere because it was Easter Saturday, I opted for a walk direct from my door on to Rombalds Moor. As I approached the 12 Apostles Stone Circle, I noticed a plume of smoke to the south side of Rombalds Moor on the Bingley Moor section. As conditions were so dry, I phoned the Fire Service. They were already aware and an appliance was on the scene. Indeed they managed to extingish the fire fairly quickly.

I then descended to the Cow and Calf Hotel for a well earned (I thought!) pint before heading home. Within an hour, an area of Ilkley Moor not far from where I had walked was ablaze. The blaze spread quickly and made the National News. In the evening, I was out in Ilkley and the moor above the town was like something out of Dante's Inferno.

I relate this tale because over the course of the Easter weekend, there were two fires on Rombalds Moor and another on Marsden Moor, in Yorkshire, caused by the tinder dry conditions;yes but primarily by thoughtless or deliberate acts by a few stupid individuals. Apart from any death or injury to creatures or people which could have occurred, it will take years for these areas to recover.

How anyone can be so reckless as to deliberately start a fire or take disposable BBQs on the moors in such conditions is beyond me. Once these BBQs have cooked, there are still glowing briquettes in them which are impossible to dispose of. So, my plea is, THINK!

18 March 2019

Sad that 11 people have been killed so far this year on British mountains. It is open to everyone to take whatever risks they like but whenever these tragedies occur, invariably it is the Mountain Rescue Teams turn out to look for missing walkers and/or pick up the pieces. Anyone winter walking in the mountains should check conditions first. See Links page General Walking Information for various sources of information.

2 February 2019

Just returned from a couple of weeks winter break in Tenerife, having decided to have a change from Lanzarote. It is a few years since I was there and I have to say the coastal strip between the airport and Los Gigantes has become a somewhat gross victim of its own success. Places which I remembered as quiet spots with virtually nothing there were a mass of apartments and hotels, constructed at the expense of the old banana plantations.Traffic is a nightmare and even walks along the 'prom' (not really my thing anyway) are a game of dodgems with mostly pensioners roaming from cafe to bar to cafe!

However, once you get up into the hills (ideally you need a car), there are some beautiful areas with walks through the pine trees and over some impressive lava flows. The footpaths are very well marked, though I decided not to write up the routes I did, mainly for that reason. Anyone else going, I would recommend getting this pair of 1:50000 scale maps which cover the whole island and are very good for identifying walk routes and road navigating. The paper is not very robust however. I kept mine in a waterproof map case to protect them and avoid repeated folding/unfolding. The plastic case they come in is pretty useless.

There is also a super durable map from the same stable as the truly excellent one I recommend for my Lanzarote walks. However, unlike the Lanzarote version, it only covers selected parts of Tenerife so it really depends where you itend to walk.

If you are not fortunate to be going walking in the Canaries and are venturing on the the fells here, please take special care at this time of year and do not underestimate the risks from snow, ice and exposure, especially if venturing high. See advice on my Safety page.

4 January 2019

In December, I was asked to make a short contribution towards an article for the Raven Hall Hotel about the "Best walk in Yorkshire and why". This has now been published and you can see my answer at https://www.ravenhall.co.uk/blog/the-best-winter-walks-around-yorkshire

3 January 2018

Happy 2019 to all visitors to this site and page.

The little Yorkshire Dales village of Horton in Ribblesdale has been the traditional starting point for the Yorkshire Three Peaks walk, not least because an enterprising cafe owner there had a clocking in machine where people undertaking the challenge could clock in and out to prove they had achieved the task within the timescale. However, the cafe has now been closed for a while, I believe due to a family illness and its future is unknown, at least by me.

However the main issue is that the village has become somewhat overrun by Three Peak walkers, support friends, relatives etc.

Over the last 18 months Ingleton’s Overground Underground Festival has entered into talks with Horton Parish Council, residents, the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority, Ingleton Parish Council, Ingleton Area Business Group and Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust to find a way around the problem.

It looks as thought the intention is that Ingleton, where there is more parking and things to do for "hangers on", should be promoted as a preferred starting point.

All information on this site is given in good faith and no liability is accepted in respect of any damage, loss or injury which might result from acting on it.