Spofforth Pinnacles

Saturday, 1st January 2011

9.25 kms (5.75 miles) - 2hrs 15min

HAPPY NEW YEAR !!  Another year of walking starts and our first walk was, appropriately, on New Year's Day.  We had not "indulged" the previous evening as Gill had to have two teeth extracted and our lack of a hangover meant we could get out and put the first miles of the year under our belts !

This is another of those areas of Yorkshire that I've never visited.  It has been described as the "poor man's Brimham Rocks" and is an example of glacial "waste" with odly shaped boulders littering the countryside.

The walk began at Spofforth (GR SE 363510) and the first stretch is a peaceful stroll alongside Crimple Beck. Well, it was peaceful but it was hard work !! more like "skating on mud" than country walking.  The recent snow, followed by the thaw has left the ground pretty solid apart from a layer of thick, cloying mud on the surface.  Crimple Valley is obviously a favourite walk for folks around those parts and it had left the footpaths very, very slippy indeed. 

Eventually you reach a back road from Follifoot (GR SE349531) which provided a chance to clean the boots as the road tracks up alongside Brown Hill Wood before joining the main road from Harrogate to Wetherby. Thankfully, you only need to cross this road before following the old road that has now been superceded by the Harrogate bypass.

A short stride along this before turning up towards Plomton Hall. Here we suffered our second geocaching failure in quick succession.  Try as we might we could not find the cache - another failure to record ! The path around Plumpton Hall has now been diverted (past some very inquisitve pigs, one of whom learnt his/her lesson the hard way as it walked into the electric fence!) and drops back to the re-cross the Harrogate to Wetherby Road, tracking the side of a wood marked as "The Warren" on the map.  From here a straight line takes you through Spofforth Pinnacles and back to the starting point in Spofforth itself.

A pleasant stroll, although the muddy conditions made it quite strenuous during the first part. Even though we finished at around 3.30 p.m. the light was already going, so some of the photos from this link, may a little dark.