![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
A nice easy walk for the afternoon
Nov. 28th, 2023 04:22 pmHaving conquered Thor's Cave this morning (by which I mean climbed up, looked at it, and went 'nope that contains too much Edge' to the path down to the cave mouth), I thought I'd take in a nice easy walk for the afternoon. Dovedale was described as a nice flat walk suitable for small children.
I was a little uneasy about the 'stepping stones' portion of the work, but consulting my trusty OpenStreetMap there appeared to be a footpath on the other side of the river from a nearby bridge.
So I set off cheerfully down the nice flat road, over the little bridge (no railings on the rather worn and muddy stone steps, but there were only a couple of steps and they weren't that steep), and set off down the wrong side of the river.
The footpath was a little bit fun, as the white rocks were quite slippery and at odd angles, but not a major problem, and I saw three maintenance trucks going down the road on the other side and thought, "I'm glad I'm not on the road in their way!"
There were a few bits where the path was being an alternative river channel, but many people had clearly pioneered an improvised high route, which was a teeny bit narrow in places but not a problem.
Then, I saw what I thought was the climax of the somewhat disaster path - my old nemesis, the 45 degree scree slope.
However, it was actually pretty easy to get by - the river was shallow at the bank and the falling scree had paved a nice little path at the base of the slope.
As I proceeded through more somewhat jutting rocks, placing my feet carefully, I thought, I really don't want to be doing this in the dark. The plan had been to walk an hour out and an hour back, but it was already only one and a half hours until sunset.
I reassured myself that I did have my head torch in my bag, 'because I'm not a complete idiot' I asserted to myself, and anyway, the stepping stones would probably be fine.
The path had utterly and completely washed away at one point, and a guy coming the other way had to wait for me to navigate the lovely sandy red incline that had been left behind.
(Throughout this endeavour there were people coming the other way all the time, who didn't look especially over prepared, and not one of them said a word to warn me.)
As I got off the incline safely, although not without a close call where my back foot slipped, I thought, I'm definitely not coming back this way.
Then, as I was catching my breath, I was treated to a lovely view of a guy crossing the stepping stones with his dog, as his companion filmed him from the bank. It did look, uh, kind of effortful. He was definitely doing a little bit of a reach in the middle there.
And then they got near the end, and there was definitely something up with the penultimate stone, but I couldn't quite make out what, and he seemed to manage okay. The dog got a bit wet but maybe it meant to do that.
Anyway, I was busy contemplating my own stepping stone challenge, as the path was totally washed out ahead with just some rocks sticking out of it. Fortunately these were much nicer, mostly flat topped rocks, and the stream didn't look all that deep anyway, so I started to navigate carefully through.
It was about three quarters of the way through that, having taken a minor risk on a wobbly rock that would probably only work in that direction, that I heard raised voices and looked at the crossing couple again. She was definitely having trouble, and he'd gone back to help her over.
A smart person would probably have turned back, or ideally some time before that, but the rest of the stream stones were kind of okay, so I got to the other side and sat on a dry rock to watch him kind of lift her onto the last rock.
Maybe she was just a bit nervous, I thought. I let them head off and went to inspect the stones.
The river was in fact washing over most of the stones, which wasn't a great start. The first one was partially submerged. And the penultimate one… was on its side, having rolled considerably out of place, and in its place was part of a tree.
I had encountered a similar looking small part of a tree in my stream excursion. I stepped onto the first stone and tapped it with my stick. It seemed very solid. But also very - round. And very in the way. And higher than the stones.
And when I experimentally poked my stick into the water, the current felt kind of strong. And my foot was already wet from the submerged first stone being more submerged than I expected.
On the plus side - as my feet were already wet, I had a cavalier disregard for just walking in the edge of the river on the way back, which let me skip the horrible red incline entirely. And that section was the worst and quite close to the start of the return adventure.
And I had replacement shoes in the car. But not dry socks, so I had to drive back to the Airbnb with wet feet anyway.
I was a little uneasy about the 'stepping stones' portion of the work, but consulting my trusty OpenStreetMap there appeared to be a footpath on the other side of the river from a nearby bridge.
So I set off cheerfully down the nice flat road, over the little bridge (no railings on the rather worn and muddy stone steps, but there were only a couple of steps and they weren't that steep), and set off down the wrong side of the river.
The footpath was a little bit fun, as the white rocks were quite slippery and at odd angles, but not a major problem, and I saw three maintenance trucks going down the road on the other side and thought, "I'm glad I'm not on the road in their way!"
There were a few bits where the path was being an alternative river channel, but many people had clearly pioneered an improvised high route, which was a teeny bit narrow in places but not a problem.
Then, I saw what I thought was the climax of the somewhat disaster path - my old nemesis, the 45 degree scree slope.
However, it was actually pretty easy to get by - the river was shallow at the bank and the falling scree had paved a nice little path at the base of the slope.
As I proceeded through more somewhat jutting rocks, placing my feet carefully, I thought, I really don't want to be doing this in the dark. The plan had been to walk an hour out and an hour back, but it was already only one and a half hours until sunset.
I reassured myself that I did have my head torch in my bag, 'because I'm not a complete idiot' I asserted to myself, and anyway, the stepping stones would probably be fine.
The path had utterly and completely washed away at one point, and a guy coming the other way had to wait for me to navigate the lovely sandy red incline that had been left behind.
(Throughout this endeavour there were people coming the other way all the time, who didn't look especially over prepared, and not one of them said a word to warn me.)
As I got off the incline safely, although not without a close call where my back foot slipped, I thought, I'm definitely not coming back this way.
Then, as I was catching my breath, I was treated to a lovely view of a guy crossing the stepping stones with his dog, as his companion filmed him from the bank. It did look, uh, kind of effortful. He was definitely doing a little bit of a reach in the middle there.
And then they got near the end, and there was definitely something up with the penultimate stone, but I couldn't quite make out what, and he seemed to manage okay. The dog got a bit wet but maybe it meant to do that.
Anyway, I was busy contemplating my own stepping stone challenge, as the path was totally washed out ahead with just some rocks sticking out of it. Fortunately these were much nicer, mostly flat topped rocks, and the stream didn't look all that deep anyway, so I started to navigate carefully through.
It was about three quarters of the way through that, having taken a minor risk on a wobbly rock that would probably only work in that direction, that I heard raised voices and looked at the crossing couple again. She was definitely having trouble, and he'd gone back to help her over.
A smart person would probably have turned back, or ideally some time before that, but the rest of the stream stones were kind of okay, so I got to the other side and sat on a dry rock to watch him kind of lift her onto the last rock.
Maybe she was just a bit nervous, I thought. I let them head off and went to inspect the stones.
The river was in fact washing over most of the stones, which wasn't a great start. The first one was partially submerged. And the penultimate one… was on its side, having rolled considerably out of place, and in its place was part of a tree.
I had encountered a similar looking small part of a tree in my stream excursion. I stepped onto the first stone and tapped it with my stick. It seemed very solid. But also very - round. And very in the way. And higher than the stones.
And when I experimentally poked my stick into the water, the current felt kind of strong. And my foot was already wet from the submerged first stone being more submerged than I expected.
On the plus side - as my feet were already wet, I had a cavalier disregard for just walking in the edge of the river on the way back, which let me skip the horrible red incline entirely. And that section was the worst and quite close to the start of the return adventure.
And I had replacement shoes in the car. But not dry socks, so I had to drive back to the Airbnb with wet feet anyway.
