This is an extremely delayed report on my walk of…

Oh dear lord, I think this was on Saturday 16th July!

We didn’t bring home much of a tan from our holiday in marvellous Majorca, Chris and I, so I thought, “that’s alright, I can go and get some sun at Rivington”, and off I went.

For the record, this keyboard appears to be a little anti-first- person- when I type a capital "I" it very often is not capitalised, remember this as you read this post!

This was my first drive down to Rivington in the new electric car, I’m not going to get all preachy, my motivation for going this way is because I believe this would eventually work out cheaper than petrol … eventually! The weather was typically stunning for a Saturday in mid July and thankfully there was not much traffic on the roads. I got to Rivington in good time and set off on a route which would take me past the delightful Japanese Lake – which is now being resold / marketed / lauded, as an Italian Lake, hey -ho it remains the same with the exception that someone has decided to put fish in it! I have some misgivings about this in that dogs wade / swim / doggy paddle in this lake and fish are notoriously jumpy / nervous around them. I appreciate the serene beauty of Coy Carp but I would rather they be somewhere else and calm then hanging out of a Labrador’s gob – dead!

It was tempting to head straight up to Rivington pike but on one of my previous visits to this area I had seen a path I’d not traversed before which dictated the route I would have to take, so onto the road of ever-changing names I went and as luck (and planning) would have it this called for a gentle half-mile descent. On route when passing what used to be “Rivington Dog Hotel” and is now “Rivington Pike Snack Shack” which sells various carbs, I heard one lady ask for “something that dogs have, y’know, a dog thing” to which the vendor (seriously, we’re calling them that?) retorted “we don’t sell dogs”, I found this hilarious (very Boltonion) and stifled my laughter for the next two hundred metres. By the time I arrived at the double gatepost where I would head off to pastures unexplored (if only by yours truly) I had forgotten all about the shop which was not a dog shop.  There was nothing spectacular about this path, I had an intuition of where it would take me and was proven correct. This was a moor of which I had no familiarity: Wilder’s Moor. Two deer gambolled a few hundred metres in front of me and I spent at least five minutes trying to photograph them on my I-Phone – which in strong sun is not too easy as I could hardly see the screen.

In hardly any time at all I was at the apex of the path and considering my choice of going straight onwards to the summit of Crooked Edge Hill (Two Lads Hill for those who insist on being wrong) or veering off on to Winter Hill (the road – as opposed to the Hill / the path / the TV transmitter station or the enormous television antenna!) , I opted to go right and onto the road. Ordinarily this locale is relatively free of people, today there was swathes of them…at least six! I had it in mind to go on to Winter Hill and down over Noon Hill but then I recollected that I really couldn’t remember my way on that unclear path and that the summit of Noon Hill is pretty nondescript and hard to tell from most of the rest of it. So I opted to split my grand walk into two walks – possibly three.

I re-joined the path up towards the cairns atop Crooked Edge Hill, it’s hard to imagine a more obvious path, and within a few seconds was tapping the tallest of the two columns of stones at over 1,00o feet above sea level – the highest I’ve been since February (if you discount the holiday flights that is!). I had no intention of loitering as there were people with dogs present and I wanted to have my lunch without them giving me a sniff.  So it was onwards and downwards back to the road I had used less than an hour ago. The descent of Crooked Edge hill to George’s Lane / Belmont Road is not arduous or dangerous in anyway, it’s just not one of my favourites, I find myself gazing at each footstep and this gets boring really quickly and there is always the fight with the backpack where it feels like the thing is trying to push me down the slopes, which has the reverse affect and makes me walk notably slower.

 

Soon I was passing by the shop which does not sell dogs (how long before I can only ever refer to it as such?) and was distracted by the oncoming adrenalin rush. Again, on my last visit to this side of the moor I had witnessed a gang of four lads, two of which ran up this near vertical slope, it stuck with me, I had to do it – but there would be no running. ‘Shouldn’t be too hard’, I thought, ‘after all it’s nowhere near as long a stretch as the middle way up Pendle.’ The first task was to actually find a way to get to the start of the climb as it was fenced off. Ultimately I rock-climbed the wall, let’s not get carried away- it was around four feet tall but all the same I didn’t think I had any upper body strength left these days! I was right, I did manage to get up it in around 30-40 seconds. Oh my god was my heart thumping though! For around a minute all I could hear was my heart doing a Cozy Powell! I enjoyed the sensation, I won’t lie, then it hit me, there was a chance, no matter how small that might be, that I would have to (try to) descend the same way as I had just come up – this could be truly lethal! I had a quick look around and decided to take a faint path which stayed parallel to the road below, phew a lucky break. I’ve never gone to the top of this hill, before, Brown Hill is probably one of the most popular names for hills throughout the land and I had always dismissed this minor mound as a distraction on route from Rivington Pike to Crooked Edge Hill, well now it has an attribute – the Cardiac Surge! Next time I may even have a look around one of the tiniest summits in this environ.

The minor event over, I dropped back down to the path in order to pick up the bridal path which skirts around the back of Rivington Pike and which offers tempting views of the wide track across either Rivington Moor or Smithills Moor, or both! Winter Hill refuses to make compromises or distinctions, that’s left up to you to decide, Rivington Moor is wetter, Smithills moor is undoubtedly muddier – see? No concessions, you’ve got to love Winter Hill! The southern aspect slog ascending “The Pike” is no two ways hard, draining, exhausting, a right old pig of a climb. It shouldn’t be this difficult thus far into the walk. Admittedly I hadn’t even done six miles by this point but I have; on occasion, left myself with the prospect of trying to haul myself to the top of this slope after twelve miles…it’s a variation on masochism! Admittedly I was still brim full of confidence after the “Cardiac Surge” ascent so maybe I should have considered that and opted for the much gentler western access path, oh well! After what seemed like an epoch I was at a relatively calm top of the pike. Some times it can be a little bit manic up here with dogs attacking each other and children bleating … no such annoyances today, everyone was eating, taking in the views, gently chatting or a combination of all three – bliss! I ate my lunch, only occasionally bothered by a curious bee, whilst gazing off to Winter Hill and its great western approach, it really is inspiring after all this time, this broad lump of wet, boggy, grassy moorland still occupies a large slice of my heart.

I wasn’t looking forward to the steps descending from the pike to Belmont Road – they are knee agitators and my knees are no longer on speaking terms with me. It took me a lot longer going down than it usually takes striding up here. Luckily enough I didn’t hold anyone up, I do so despise getting stuck behind people on any of my walks – even the person with whom I am sharing my walk! As I was in no particular rush I ambled my way through the terraced gardens and various offshoots of the main paths, they can get a bit confusing these days as the friends of Rivington Pike (or whatever they call themselves these days) are seemingly on a missions to restore everything that once was here – at any cost. At one point I got behind two pleasant girls, one of whom had said “Oh you know what I’m like, I love everybody!” How lovely, I mused and as we made our way down the numerous slopes I listened with a certain wry glee at her descriptions of these people who she ‘loves’ – I think she might need to revise her usage of the term “love”!

After some stumbling, caused by fatigue with an emphasis on the ‘fat’ I arrived back at the car a little over three hours after leaving it. This had been a lovely outing and not before time. I would have loved to have completed a “four peaks” circular taking in Winter Hill and Noon Hill but erred on the side of caution owing to my general unfitness.

Summary

The more thought I give to it, the more I yearn to achieve a grand tour of all of Winter Hill’s summits, there are a number of them:

Adam Hill
Brown Hill
Brown Lowe
Burnt Edge
Counting Hill
Crooked Edge Hill
Egg Hillock
Noon Hill
Rivington Pike
Two Lads Hill
Whimberry Hill
White Brow
Winter Hill

.It must surely be possible to design a route which takes in them all, in one day? I have promised myself to do another condensed version taking in just a couple of peaks and I had considered Noon Hill and Winter Hill. The more I think about it though, the more I want to try and take in those I haven’t already treaded such as Burnt Edge, Adam Hill and Brown Lowe, add this to Crooked Edge Hill and this could be a lovely walk. Time to get plotting.

Until next time…