BB1323 :  Yoda and the Three Ladies

Thursday 27th June 2013

Well, “Poo to Ireby” is all I can say on the matter.  We wanted to give them the benefit of Stan’s car’s presence and, had they had a pub, would no doubt have followed it up with custom at the bar.  But the Irbeyites clearly do not welcome visitors so, instead, we made for the much more accommodating Masongill.  Pity they don’t have a pub either so that that village could have been rewarded.

They do have a library, however.  One of the more imaginative uses of an old phone box.  And remarkably, it is solar powered.

Also, Masongill is the home of the Donnay bird as we can vouch, having found one of its eggs.

Masongill library

The Donnay egg

What is more, they have Mason Gill Fell Lane which provided the route for us to tackle Gragareth (it sounds best in a Welsh accent which is not surprising- see BB1025) on a day that threatened rain.  There was no such problem as we walked up the road.  We were a little concerned by a posse of what seemed like off road motor cyclists but they were driving very carefully and caused us no problem.

The posse

A fenced off sink

Ingleborough

Below us was Kingsdale into which we dropped in order to reach the lower end of Yoda’s Cave. We discovered his front door and explored the entrance area.  The strong evidence of a large quantity of running water could be heard but without a powerful torch we were not equipped to press too deep. As he says:

"Hard to see, the dark side is"

Then I realised.  It wasn’t Yoda's cave at all. 

It was Yordas Cave.  He wasn’t in either, or at least, not as far as we could see which, as you have realised, far to see, the not is.

Yordas Wood

Yordas cave entrance

The gully above presented an interesting scramble though the greasy rocks prevented John and I from completing the ghyll climb.  Stan, who worries not about such matters, did emerge, to our relief, at the top.

The gully above Yordas Cave

The stream feeding the cave

It was now starting to drizzle as we commenced the climb up Gragareth.  Also a cold wind was blowing.  Perhaps we should have taken lunch at the Sheepfold but the really steep area lay before us and I, at least, prefer to get the hard work out of the way before eating.  Don’t I, Tony?? !!!

The steepest part of the ascent

And steep it was. 

Similar in slope to Steel Fell albeit much shorter. 

Once this was out of the way, we took shelter from the rain and increasingly cold wind behind a wall. 

After butties were gone, we crossed over the plateau and quickly found the summit trig point.

From there, it should have been easy to drop down to the Three Men Of Gragareth but the mist had gragathered and we were now in cloud. 

We thought we saw them but then they disappeared.  And then we did find them.  Only, it wasn’t them, it was the Three Ladies of Gragareth.    As the Men couldn’t see what we were doing, we gave the Ladies a cuddle for the team photo then moved on.

Comitibus :  With the Three Ladies

It didn’t take long to find the Three Men, blissfully unaware of the liberties we had taken.

The Three Men of Gagareth

The leafy track

The excitement for the day being over, we dropped to the road that leads down to Leck but, at Fellside Beck, turned south down a really nice leafy track that leads to, cough, Ireby.  From here it was just a short stroll across a few fields to the much more welcoming but still publess Masongill.  Instead, we visited the Sun Inn in Kirkby Lonsdale where we raised our glasses in honour of the Three Ladies.

Don, 27th June 2013

Missing Missiles

Brother Alan took one look at last week's photo of the Blue Steel missile and pronounced that it was not a real one.

I assured him that the photo had been obtained from what was believed to be a reliable source but he stuck to his guns.

Or should that read "stuck to his rockets"?

Apparently, there were very few real rockets made and they were seldom put on public display.  However, there were dozens of fake missiles produced to be paraded up and down the land, whether to impress the Russians or the Brits being an open question.

He thinks that other Cold War protagonists were playing the same game.

Rat-a-tat-tat!  Excuse me, I hope that knock on the door that I hear is not someone from MI5 !

Or SMERSH ?????

STATISTICS:  

BB1323

Date:  

Thursday 27th June 2013

Distance in miles:

10.7 (Garmin gps)

Height climbed in feet:

2,141  (Memory Map / OS)

Wainwrights:

-

Other Features:

Gragareth

Comitibus:

Don, John H, Stan

 BOOTboys routes are put online in gpx format which should work with most mapping software. You can follow our route in detail by downloading bb1323

To discover which Wainwright top was visited on which BB outing see
Which Wainwright When?

For the latest totals of the mileages and heights see: BB Log.

 

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