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19 July 2009

WHERNSIDE IDENTITY CRISIS

I suppose the rot set in when Yorkshire started playing cricket with non Yorkshire born players. Standards started sliding inexorably down hill ever since. (I suppose Yorkshire tea is no longer grown on the sunlit slopes above Skipton....)

Today we went for a stroll up a hill with an identity crisis.

For as long as I can recall I have always believed that there were the Yorkshire Three Peaks: Pen-y-Ghent, Ingleborough and Whernside.

Well, today your roving correspndent has learned that in fact for quite some time now Yorkshire has been stripped of Whernside. Indeed the new upstart county of Cumbria has gained the summit trig point in a boundary reshuffle many a year ago. Some of the summit remains in North Yorkshire (whatever happened to the good old West Riding?) but the crucial trig point ~ the focus of many a peak bagger's tick-list ~ is now firmly planted in Cumbrian soil.

PW and the Ribblehead Viaduct

How the modern Yorkshireman can live with this shame defies belief. This is worse than metricating the summit heights. This is worse than counting distance in the European kilometer.

This is surely theft on a gigantic scale. To shift millions and millions of tons of rock from one county to another just beggars belief. This is no Elgin Marbles (they can only weigh a few tons or so). This is no Egyptian tomb.

This is a whole mountain they have pinched.

Odd Job and the Potentail Bigamist

So I have still only done two of the Yorkshire Peaks. And one of the Cumbrian ones as well.

13 comments:

  1. Keep up with the times Alan - don't become more of a dinosaur than......

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  2. Much too early for April fools Alan.


    (And they took Mickle Fell too....grrrr..)

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  3. I suppose now it should be added to the list of Wainrights and you'll have to start doing them all over again, in the correct height order of course! I've watched the MotoGP so what's left to do on a Sunday afternoon?
    G.

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  4. After finding our way down to the bottom of Whernside (a lovely little hill) we found our way to the Helwith Bridge and it was quite splendid. There were no northerners or southerners there.

    Just a pub full of happy people.

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  5. What I still cannot fathom out Alan is why you chose the icream van rather than the Hill Inn for your refreshments - perhaps you got befuddled when you joined teh day's 3 peakers?

    The Potential Bigamist

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  6. Howdy Pot-Big,

    Having found ourselves locationally displaced and at the ice-cream emporium, we of course partook of their fine wares - Lemonade Lollies!

    On the stroll back to where we should have been we did in fact pass by the Hill Inn, which indeed sold beer. However my heart was set on the Helwith Bridge, as Shirl had promised a paradise of delights and besides, the previous week I had been in the 'Bridge' darn sarf in Upper Beeding and I quite fancied an up norf 'Bridge' pub - for symmetry, you understand...

    Life is full of sacrifices and I suffer for my art.

    And Shirl was spot on - it was a cracking little pub.

    I shall porbably re-visit the Hill Inn another day. It is a crying shame to pass by a pub like that.

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  7. Locationally displaced - again! Good man. I bravely carried on this fine tradition myself in the Lakes this weekend ... but under the withering eye of Miss W.

    A wet Harvey's map can deliver a remarkably stinging blow.

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  8. under the withering eye of Miss W

    Ooh that must have been nasty. And did she say "HA!"

    That triumphalism is the absolute stinger. Fortunately, Shirl took it all in good part.

    My excuse was that I was following all the "three peakers" and some them were pretty young things...

    What was yours?

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  9. Fair play to you all. A mighty trip, and we are horribly envious. And probably can't spell ...

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  10. Ooh! Another spell checker - I already have a keen teacher in Marian so it's good to be kept on my toes, 'Anon'.

    You are right - my spelling leaves a lot to be desired and my grammar makes me wince - when I notice it, that is - that's the pROblem with grammar, ain't it, doncha know?

    Is that you, Humph?

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  11. Totally Off Topic:

    For your Kungsleden walk, a good first resource is the FjällRäven Classic website: http://www2.fjallraven.com/classic/index.asp?epslanguage=en

    There is a lot of information on the Kungsleden available in German (Germans are crazy about Sweden and you will bump into many of them), outdoorseiten.net is a good resource if you are able to read and understand German.

    A good book on the Kungleden is the Nordskandinavien - Der Wanderführer by Peter Bickel. I have it and can strongly recommend it. If you got further questions or need more help, drop me an Email - hendrik dot morkel at gmail dot com !

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  12. Hendrik

    Many thanks for that information - As you say - it's a first class starting point for the walk and is packed full of information.

    Really kind of you - Thank you!

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  13. Not me, guv... But I do read yr blogette. Avidly. Oh yes ...

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