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Hope Beck and Dodd

Date & start time: Tuesday 19th January 2010, 11.45 am start.

Location of Start : The Swinside mountain road, Hopegill Valley, Cumbria, Uk ( NY 169 242 )

Places visited : Hopegill Head Valley to the sheepfold and back via a short climb to Dodd.

Walk details : 2.6 mls, 1075 ft, 1 hr 20 mins. (Home for lunch)

Highest point : Dodd on Whiteside 1475 ft ( 454m)

Walked with : Myself and the dogs, Harry and Bethan.

Weather : Overcast and cool in the breeze.

 

Hope Beck and Dodd


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The slight problem of a lost mobile phone raised it's ugly head today, so today I repeated Ann's walk of yesterday in an attempt to find the missing item.

Fortunately she chose a nice place to walk, so today I walked, head down at times, on a circuit of the upper Hope Beck Valley

combining the daily dog walk with a grand search of the Hopegill pathways.

Parking off road at the fell gate on the top valley road.

No wonder this is one of Ann's favourite local walks . . . big views, open spaces and room for the dogs to run.

This is the Loweswater to Lorton valley over the fell wall.

Ahead is the fine rocky summit of Hopegill Head.

Where the Hope Beck changes to the Hope Gill I'm not very sure . . . it's not clear on the Ordnance Survey map either.

Evidence of the recent high waters in the form of gravel and stone washed out of the stream bed

and deposited on the grass alongside the old sheep fold.

The beck descends quickly alongside the path . . .
. . . and Harry is looking for sticks to fetch.

Unfortunately sticks are a rarity up here as can be seen by the lack of trees in the photos.

The head of the main part of the valley.

From here on the beck gets smaller and smaller as it flows down from the snow lined gully up on the slabs.

Zooming in on the gully and the summit of Hopegill Head.

The sheepfold would be the highest point Ann had reached so it was time to turn around.

Having checked the path up already, I diverted on the way back and included a short climb up onto Whiteside's Dodd Fell.

The rough but seemingly natural stone valley between Dodd and the main fell.

The summit photo.

It's one of those " I can see our house from here " moments.

I could also see some of the flood damage below me in the valley.

The grey area is stones and rubble washed out of the river and spread across the farmers fields.

Further down a new area of water still has not drained away after the storms.

The field of what looks like cars is in fact the Whinfell Hall caravan site. It fortunately was on higher ground and avoided the floods.

For a change I headed directly down the front of Dodd.

Not a lot of paths, in fact none at all, just boulders, heather, moss and this rather nice outcrop of rock.

All that way and it was just 20 yards away !

It was a great walk but I failed to find the missing piece of mobile telegraphic equipment.

Hang on, Ann said that she washed the dog's paws in the stream by the gate before putting them back in the car.

After all that walking, guess where I found the phone . . . hold your cursor over the photo to see !

The same spot two months on, facing the other way.

The Hopegill road was the one I used to get back to the cottage on the first day of the floods.

It was interesting to see what has and hasn't happened to the road since.

[ Hold your cursor over the image to see the same spot eight weeks ago.]

The Coldgill Beck still finds the culvert blocked so uses the roadway instead.

The same spot eight weeks later

The next, unnamed beck caused me more problems on the day but has cleared itself with less long term damage.

[ Hold your cursor over the image to see the same spot eight weeks ago.]

- - - o o o - - -

 

Technical note: Pictures taken with my Canon G10 digital camera.

Resized in Photoshop, and built up on a Dreamweaver web builder.

This site best viewed with . . . a JCB excavator and a council lorry with a load of fresh tarmac.

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Previous walk - 17th January 2010 Ling Fell with Ann

A previous time up here - 18th July 2007 Ladyside on a sunny afternoon

Next walk - 27th January 2010 Rannerdale at twilight