Category: Europe
Experiences with Spanish hiking maps
3rd November 2018 Currently, I am writing up my walking trip to Mallorca from December 2016 but it is proving to be slow going. Enthusiasm for completing the job is waning so splitting up the endeavour might be in order, especially since the narrative is heading in different directions. Towards this end, I will share my ruminations on using Spanish hiking maps since they have intruded in the trip report and could deflect it from proceeding in a single direction. As things stand, it needs some additions even if it already has grown quite long already.
Before I left, I ensured that I was supplied with maps. The best of these were ones by Editorial Alpina and they covered the Serra de Tramuntana as a two map set. The scale was 1:25000 with hiking trails well marked but I ended up stepping outside their coverage around Port d'Andratx and needed one from the 1:40000 four map set by Reise Know-How to make up the shortfall. The latter covers the whole island, shows hiking trails and is made from waterproof paper, not that I needed the last feature on my trip.
Though it provided useful trail tracking, my Garmin GPS receiver proved less useful because of the poor quality of its Spanish maps. Around Port de Pollença, it may have been stymied by the presence of a military facility but the shortcomings were more than apparent around Port d'Andrtatx when I failed to locate the path that would have led me to a track towards Sant Elm. It did not help that I was in a fragile state that day but I would consider an alternative on another Spanish trip.
Though maps from Spain's national mapping agency CNIG do not show trails, they do come in 1:50000 and 1:250000 scales that are available in digital form through SityTrail and ViewRanger. The former of these offers annual subscriptions while only an expensive all country lifetime licence is available from the latter. Both offer mobile phone apps so they would be usable much like that from Britain's Ordnance Survey, useful as a pinpointing backup to a paper map for those moments when uncertainty descends though complementing with a compass is best.
If I was ever to venture onto Spanish territory again, I would be tempted to give SityTrail a whirl while out walking. For writing the Mallorca trip report, I have an active subscription and have been able to load GPX tracks on there after exporting them from my Garmin device. That should help with route descriptions even with CNIG data behind them and added photos can act as confirmation.
Forthside wanderings
30th October 2018 This year's trips to Edinburgh have seen a developing trend: a tendency to go walking along the southern shore of the Firth of Forth. February saw me pottering along Edinburgh's northern shores on a stroll that took me from Edinburgh's city to and along the water of Leith before I headed west as far as Silverknowes where I caught a bus to Waverley train station where I caught my train home.
That necessarily cut off an approach to Cramond, but the omission got addressed on a July visit when I walked along the coast west of Silverknowes before going inland along the banks of the River Almond and that was followed by a brief visit to the Cammo Estate before I found a bus stop from where I began my journey home. There was no crossing to Cramond Island because it was a time of high tide, so examining tide times ahead of a coastal hike and that lesson was reinforced more recently.
As it happened, this past Saturday saw the longest stroll of the lot, with my going west from North Berwick to Seton Sands. Mainly, it involved travel over sandy beaches and dunes, as well as rocky shorelines. Many coastal rocky prominences like Bass Rock or Fidra caught my eye and led to photographic activity. Part of the John Muir Way was followed too, especially after a crossing of Aberlady Bay was stymied by the depth of Peffer Burn. That crossing left me wetter than was ideal, but thoughts of getting cut off by an advancing tide spurred me along. Next time, a sighting of a beach watercourse on a map will cause me to be more cautious about my intentions than I was on this occasion.
Still, much sunshine was enjoyed, and it did wonders for the coastal scenery, much like on previous visits to the Edinburgh coastline in February and July. Unlike those days, more cloud came in the afternoon and brought a little rain, but that did nothing to take from what preceding better weather brought to me earlier in the day. My route had been inspired by one included in The Great Outdoors and offered something very different to other possibilities like the Pentland Hills or the Glen Sax round near Peebles. Both of those await future explorations now that the bracing sea air of the Forth has been savoured and there are other parts that need exploring, so return visits to Edinburgh remain likely.
Sharing or sparing?
18th September 2018 Having what is called a bucket list, a list of places that you would like to visit while you can, is common these days but I wonder if such a thing is all that desirable. By the its nature, the problems start when compiling a list of such ideas because chances are that you will select places that already are popular. That applies as much when perusing travel magazines or holiday brochures as it does when using social media.
One consequence of this is that certain locations become too popular for the sake of sustainability and that leads to restrictions that affect the independent traveller. South American destinations like Machu Pichu and Torres del Paine National Park come to mind here but the problem is spread around the world. Scotland's Isle of Skye has experienced problems that never made the news before and you only have to see how many visit well promoted attractions like the Cliffs of Moher to see how many people visit a small number of locations in Ireland at a time during the high season.
This then poses something of a dilemma: do you cater for the visitor numbers or do you restrict them? With wilderness and conservation areas, there is a tendency to do the latter though it does have the consequence of pushing up visitor costs and that may have its benefits for local tourism businesses as you may find on a trip to places in either the Canadian Rockies or Alaska. When you add in short summer tourism seasons, the effect by necessity is more pronounced.
In other destinations, they add in facilities for the extra visitors with some decrying the effect that this has had on Spain's Mediterranean coastline because of hotel and holiday apartment construction. Parts of the Alps are afflicted like this but in a different way: it is the infrastructure of skiing resorts that hardly help appearances in mountain country during the summer season. Both examples make you wonder at the appropriateness of such developments and they must tug at the heartstrings of anyone who adores mountain and coastal scenery.
Another aspect of any overdevelopment is that you can install something that encourages the otherwise unprepared into wild places without realise the possible dangers that are there. For instance, I seem to have inherited my father's unease at cliff edges and my knowledge of how slippery limestone can be almost made me shout at people to keep back from the edge on a damp day hike around the Cliffs of Moher and Doolin. It is little wonder that staff are equipped with whistles to direct the unaware away from peril.
There is overcaution too and one example is the boardwalk on Cuilcagh Mountain and how incongruous it looks in the landscape through which it conveys people to the top of the hill shared between Cavan and Fermanagh, between Éire and Northern Ireland. It also does not help that it stops short of the top too but the boggy morass deters most. Another location where path development attracted adverse comment was at Sliabh Liag in County Donegal but it might be that some sense prevailed there in the end.
Hillwalking is a growing pastime in Ireland so there remains a lot to learn in a country where there is neither experience nor tradition of path and track building in such places. Thankfully, organisations like Mountain Meitheal and Mountaineering Ireland together with initiatives like Helping the Hills are starting to address this so lessons are learned from places like Scotland and applied to get sensible solutions to the growing problem of erosion on popular hills. It is something that needs attention as much as securing access for hill wandering in the first place.
The mention of countryside access brings me to another factor that causes some places to feel overloaded: a lack of alternatives. It is not everywhere that has the liberal access rights that are enjoyed in Scotland and across Scandinavia so there can be a very really reduction in the number of places where you can explore. The options may not stop you going to those better known places like Norway's Preikestolen before finding other quieter hikes nearby as knowledge grows and maps feel more confiding.
It is this last point that inspires the title and the theme runs through Fiona Reynolds' The Fight for Beauty, a book that I read last autumn. It is not for nothing park rangers in Denali National Park tell you not to walk one after another in a group so a path never develops and that everyone's backcountry journey is their own. When there is plenty of land for all, we can spread out and find our own space to recharge weary spirits. That is easier when we are not retracing the steps of others all the while and it can have a lighter impact on the countryside too with less erosion caused by many feet and much path widening. While it can be true that we get confined by or own lack of knowledge, physical restrictions caused by not having enough other places to go hardly help either. Overcoming both might be the ultimate answer to the visitor management conundrum.
More ambling along the Goyt Valley
12th September 2018 Sometimes, walking routes get reprised very close to each other and this pairing is one of those that, I thought, had been written up earlier but surveying what was posted on here already proves me wrong. It might be that because I have done some pairing of different walks in other trip reports, blending of memories has struck, so let us move along.
A pair of strolls along variations of what otherwise might have been the same route allow an opportunity to find some contrasts, and so it is with these trots between Burbage and Whaley Bridge via the Goyt valley. Here is a list: wintery showers versus a taste of summer, midwinter versus the onset of spring, the end of a year versus the start of another and the end of one piece of business versus the onset of another. Each changed the character of my hikes as much as the deviations that I made the second time around, so they hopefully will add a little something to their respective narratives.
2016-12-22
It is difficult to talk about starting a Christmas break when part of your working life has stopped and another is continuing to what feels like the bitter end. That was the conundrum that surrounded this walk, yet an offer of a half decent day was enough to draw me outside again after a serene day spent among the Cumbrian fells. In truth, there was to be a lot of the same sensibility about this outing too, and that was just as well given how my life was going at the time.
My arrival in Burbage was followed by some fumbling while I oriented myself, but I was soon on the track by Burbage-edge Plantation. Height was gained steadily before a wintry shower of rain came my way to test my resolve. As if that were not enough. The wind was strong enough to obscure the words of a passing runner. Thankfully, this was to be the only such stormy weather episode of the day and dry, sunny if chilly weather became my lot for the rest of the walk.
Skirting the aforementioned forestry plantation, I continued from Burbage Edge towards Berry Clough with opening views of my surroundings. Sunshine came and went, but my mind was allowed to wanderer but not so far that it interfered with navigation. The path remained clear and became even cleared as I followed the clough downhill. All the while, I also needed to keep an eye on my footing even on an agreeable gradient.
The end of the incline landed me near the waters of the River Goyt where there was a bridge on which I loitered a while before picking up a path in the belief that it might be the desired right of way. That did not prove to be the case, but it mattered not a jot. Its boggy way led me across the well-named Goyt's Moss towards Errwood Reservoir and around by the lower slopes of Wild Moor. The surroundings suggested otherwise, but Buxton was only a few miles away, but the emptiness was just what was needed to experience a much-needed soothing interlude of calm.
By then, the course was the same as one that had been followed before, so there was little need to consult a map and I wandered along tracks and paths until I reached the road that would drop me onto the dam at the end of Errwood Reservoir. Here, I was to linger awhile, especially on the other side before I continued on my way. The last spell of sunshine of the came and I left as clouds blocked it again.
Losing height gained me the shore of Fernilee Reservoir, by which I was to process for a kilometre or two. It was not all level going either, for I needed to gain some height on the way to the lane that crosses the reservoir dam. Any idea of continuing along the east back of the River Goyt was extinguished by the sight of signs warning of path closure due to work on an asbestos roof. The way by the west bank would suffice, and it was on a good track too. Eventually, a way down to a bridge across the river was found, so I could follow its east bank to reach Shallcross Wood where I would meet two equestrians coming the other way, though I questioned the wisdom of their following the track that they were using because of the tree cover.
Beyond the wood, the right of way lead me onto the A5004 that would carry me into the heart of Whaley Bridge, where I would await the next bus back to Macclesfield. Arriving at the bus stop in plenty of time to do some shopping in a small place that was not too tiny to have a Big Issue seller plying his wares. Light was declining, so I was glad to see the bus arrive. Its passage along the B5470 was to cause a missed phone call from my solicitor, whose business would need to wait until the following morning.
The same applied to an auctioneer who made contact with me while I was out among the hills, but both matters were sorted quickly enough to close affairs for the year. If it was as easy as that to unwind in the time that was available, 2017 might have been different and life progresses as it does. Between Christmas and New Year, there were to be a few days spent in Mallorca that would have their own story to tell.
Though dampened by rain and having enough wind not to hear what someone else was saying, I persevered and dropped into the Goyt Valley. From Berry Clough onward, much of my route was a reprise of a walk undertaken in October 2013. As if to underline what recent years of tumult have done to my memory, the section along by Fernilee Reservoir had been a blur and I followed the River Goyt from its dam on the western side instead of the eastern one as I did before. Otherwise, there was reward in the form of some sunshine lighting up Errwood Reservoir. Nevertheless, another return is in order and one on a sunny day would be best, since I never have had much luck with the Goyt Valley when it comes to photography. It may mean getting muddy again, but that is a trifle when it gives returns like the ones I often get.
2017-03-25
What probably was the first sunny weekend of the year could not do other than lure me out of what felt like a rut. 2017 had started with a flu-like illness before enough was completed in Ireland to satisfy a two-year deadline. Then, my mind turned to sorting out a certain lack of energy and there was a reluctance to pursue more in the way of Irish works. These and what preceded them were blamed for my lethargy, rather than signs that my day job was not what I hoped it would be. A spring sabbatical that began soon after this hike was not enough to deal with that, so I ended up stepping into "oblivion": leaving my job to start a career break that would allow for rest and a time for exploration that laid the foundations for how I work these days. Little did I know that quite a year lay ahead of me.
That sunny day in March, I had a decision to make: was it Burbage to Whaley Bridge again or a walk from Disley back to Macclesfield using part of the Gritstone Trail before using other rights of way beyond Bollington? Both options had me torn between, but I chose the former for Saturday and the pull of the latter got me out again on Sunday. This was to become a walking weekend.
This time, there was no fumbling on arrival in Burbage, for I knew where I was going next. In any case, it was a release from a bus full of folk tempted out for the day by the predicted weather. From start to end, this was to be a day with plenty of sunshine and rising temperatures. Thankfully, that is how it turned out, too.
After coming a little along the now familiar, I stopped a while to organise myself and took in such sights as Grinlow Tower and the busy A537 across the valley floor from me. If this sounds like the weather made it easier for me to look around, there might be some truth in that thought. The same benign conditions also made it easier to deviate from the December route, as much as an earlier start and longer hours of daylight. It would have been even better a day later with the extra hour of daylight in the evening time added by the onset of Summer Time. Still, there was ample time on the last Saturday of Winter Time for my needs.
The first variation came soon enough, with my not skirting the Burnage-edge Plantation as long as I did in December. Instead, I kept going straight along the track as if destined for Derbyshire Bridge. However, I still left it for the Goyt Valley and did that near its highest point too. The out of action Cat & Fiddle Inn lay before me, but my closest encounter was to be that aboard the bus that brought me from Macclesfield.
My thoughts though were on rejoining the path down to Berry Clough, and there was plenty to see in the sunshine as I went on my way. Goyt's Moss and Stake Side took up most of my field of view until I began to drop along the clough itself. In good time, the now familiar bridge over the River Goyt began to be seen and then reached. After a photography stop, I was on my way again.
This time around, I ensured that I stayed as close to the line of my intended right of way as possible and got better views along the valley too. That there were hardly any marks on the ground from previous stragglers may have made it a more challenging task, but it increased the chances of solitary wandering, something that I relish. In something of a freestyle fashion, I found the wall where I would turn right and use as a handrail for further navigation. A clough crossing added a descent and subsequent re-ascent before a more descenting descent followed. While I should have stayed near the wall, I veered away in the hope of more friendly gradients and the chance of a zigzag course. Since I was on Open Access Land, there was no need to stick rigorously to the route of a public footpath anyway.
The cause of that testing descent was another nameless clough and I returned to the wall to continue to one with a name: Wildmoorstone Brook. Crossing that and going uphill again brought me to a reservoir near Goyt's Lane. While the road would take back towards Errwood Reservoir, I chose a byway in its place and that returned me to more familiar surroundings, but I was to add another twist: a footpath going around Bunsal Cob that cut out even more road walking. The knoll itself was not left without further exploratory perambulations to extend the time spent there before continuing to the dam of Errwood Reservoir.
Leaving there, I spotted another path that followed the slope of the dam itself to give a more satisfying start to a stroll along by Fernilee Reservoir. This was the first time that I was doing that without sunshine fading on me or rain showers intruding. There was loitering about its reservoir as I checked if a previously encountered obstruction remained because of work on a building containing asbestos in its fabric. Since the obstacle allowed no further passage, I advised others as much, and I retraced steps and followed the same course into Whaley Bridge as I did in December. It was just as unpeopled as I found it on other visits.
It can amaze how a brain records events for the signs of others out enjoying the day as much as I did, hardly remain now. Another curiosity is that the exact details of how I got home have been lost too, but any journey would have involved a change in Stockport. Whether that was from bus to train or train to train is unclear now, but both are plausible, and it certainly was not a direct bus ride to Macclesfield like the previous encounter with the area. The important details persist, and it is the ambience of the hike that can be reproduced most readily. Since that is often what draws me, it is just as well, and any sense of recalled calm is a godsend when life proceeds along one of its rougher stretches.
Travel Arrangements
Bus Service 58 from Macclesfield to Burbage on both days. Bus service 60 from Whaley Bridge to Macclesfield after the December walk. Bus service 199 or train to Stockport followed by a train to Macclesfield after the March hike.
A few hours wandering about the north wall of Great Langdale
4th September 2018 2016 was a very full year. There was a lot of Irish business to be completed along with two political upheavals and a new job that I now realise was not a match for me. Towards salving the last of these, there were no less than three overseas trips with on each to Austria, Norway and Mallorca. Even with these and maybe because of them, I still did not feel that I was getting the emotional space that I craved so much. It set the scene for changes in 2017 that led to the start of a career break.
This post tells the tale of another trip that preceded the personal tumult of 2017 while coming after the global turbulence of 2016 and in the midst of finishing the personal work for the year. It, too, was a reminder that not all was well with my lifestyle and there was another in the form of an inability to stop spending on some things as if the future never existed. Looking back on this now, I realise that it was caused by a lack of personal emotional space caused by having too much happening in my life. That theme was to result in some adjustment in subsequent years.
To avert any loss in motivation, I booked a single room in YHA Ambleside so I travelled up there by train and bus on Saturday. A later departure meant that I arrived in the dark, but that did not stop me strolling about the place. After all, the shore was near at hand and I even got into the heart of Ambleside, which was a kilometre or two away; in spite of the name, the hostel is found at Waterhead on the shore of Lake Windermere. A fish supper was enjoyed too, a rare thing for me these days. For the way back, I should have had my head torch for going along a darkened lane though I came to no harm because of my risk taking.
After all that, I settled down for the night and arose next morning to a pleasing scene. Between 08:00 and 09:00, the sun leisurely arose. Before this all started, I made a solitary photo that recorded a peaceful scene on Windermere with the sky having a rosy hue about the frosted grassland. This also preceded breakfast and I was lured out again after that to savour a scene whose tinting was changing from red to blue. Cloud cover steadily broke as I did so and, after collecting my belongings and checking out, it was time to await a bus to Great Langdale.
It may have been down to thinking of exploring the place at the wrong time but I never had much luck with seeing Great Langdale in bright sunshine. Admittedly, the visits have been few with the first being on a walk from Borrowdale that took in the Scottish sounding Langstrath and that was followed by a winter wander from Great Langdale to Ambleside. Both were greeted by grey skies. More often than not, I viewed the distinctive Langdale Pikes while on other hikes so it was not before time that I saw them up close in favourable conditions.
The bus dropped me at its terminus near the Old Dungeon Ghyll Hotel. Frosted grass told a story of a preceding cold night on the valley bottom and the following morning was little warmer. This was more than a little noticed as I pottered along the flat ground by Great Langdale Beck between Old Dungeon Ghyll Hotel and New Dungeon Ghyll Hotel. In fact, I was reproaching my forgetfulness when it came to having gloves. Local shepherds were moving their flock, something had me wondering if such an act could not have been done on another day. After letting them on their way, I shortened the distance to Stickle Ghyll while warming my hands as well as I could.
Following what had been a largely quiet interlude, I joined the busy path up to Stickle Tarn. The gradient was testing and it helped little that the perceived throng stopped me from stopping as much as I would have liked. Passing and re-passing the same people needed energy so I was not willing to allow that to happen so readily. The others were bound from the tarn with some continuing to the top of Pavey Ark. After the fleshpot, quieter surroundings were sought and found. The distraction had its uses for my hands warmed on the ascent while the presence of snow patches attempted to belie any sense of the day having become that little bit warmer too.
Looking back on what happened next, it might have been that the expected right of way was not a path on the ground, but even having a GPS receiver could not stop me veering off it. A determined effort could have addressed this, as I was to find afterwards in similar circumstances on the moors between Bamford and Hathersage in Derbyshire. Then, I stuck with the line almost regardless of what lay underfoot. Returning to its Cumbrian predecessor, I took the hint and adopted a freestyle approach. In any case, there were multiple paths so it was a case of picking one that went in the desired direction and the benign weather allowed for such an approach.
My wandering course took me around by Blea Rigg and Great Castle How. Though it was afternoon at this point, it was around these that I gained the most satisfaction. Few were about so I could amble as I liked and the momentary sense of relaxation was just what I needed with wonderful views round about me. Windermere could be seen to the south while both Codale Tarn and Easedale Tarn lay below me in the growing afternoon shadows. It did not matter that I ought to have been beside them and not above them as I was.
What began to occupy my mind was finding a way down to the eastern end of Easedale Tarn. Once the initial steepness of the chosen descent was past, it was replaced by more gentle slopes as I negotiated the way to the track by Sourmilk Gill. The sun may have been lowering all the while but I had daylight with me and there were a few others passing the way but in nothing like the numbers encountered on the way up to Stickle Tarn.
All navigational travails were behind me, for the clarity of a defined track aided passage as much as the onset of a quiet lane. The surrounding land was falling increasingly into shadow, but my timing was good when I got to Grasmere. There even was some time for self-tidying before the next bus to Windermere. The air may have been cooling again but I was on my way soon enough.
That afternoon had provided a much-needed interlude that was the forbear of longer ones like a subsequent springtime sabbatical and a longer career break. The identification of a need for more personal emotional space became a search that remains ongoing. It even seeps into how I approach work these days and a spot of quiet time among Cumbrian fells became the start of an ongoing journey.
What has not happened so far is the incorporation of repeat visits to that itinerary. Vantage points like Lingmoor Fell, Pavey Ark and Harrison Stickle all take my fancy and should add the familiarity whose absence was felt while figuring out what subjects were in the photos selected for this trip report. Doing so in similarly sunny and serene condition would add to such experiences and I would return in hope of such things. Life still needs quieter moments.
Travel Arrangements
Train journey between Macclesfield and Windermere. Bus service 555 from Windermere to Ambleside and from Grasmere to Windermere. Bus service 516 from Ambleside to Great Langdale.
