During the previous 2 days it had rained and it only just stopped on Thursday evening, the famous five turned up at the rendezvous point, Broughton Forrest, one person looked at the black cloud over the 'old man', felt the force 5 wind and decided he did not have enough survival gear, so it became D'artagnan and the three musketeers. George parked his car at Torver village in case we needed to do a shuttle of bodies later on. We set off west down the forest road and after loosing some height, there is a left turn into a forest bridleway, this tests with some tree roots, before coming out on a fire road running to the right side of a stream, called River Lickle, near Stephenson Ground. Here we stopped to pump up Paul's tyre, after his pump failed he borrowed Georges new fangled pump, although he may have damaged some plastic bit off that as well, it was heard said that there are 3 things you should never lend out; a bike pump; a chainsaw or the wife!
On that note we headed north up the track, making steady if slow progress, we are about 200m (650ft) at this point, the highest point as we cross over Walna Scar is at 600m (2000ft) so there is some climbing to be done, so steady away...after a while we reach Natty Bridge, past this and the track narrows and the climbing becomes more of a test, some places we walk. After a while there is a flat plateau, a little boggy, as we round the corner past the rocks the winds picks up, but we can see some views, check out the photos, note the discussion on 'which way now'? After biking along under White Pike, trying to steer a straight line with the gusting wind, we came to some disused (roofless) buildings, where we stopped for a jelly baby ration (2 each apparently!) At this point we reach the Walna Scar Road and turn right to start the climb up, I got about 50yds up the track, when I ran out steam (or at least 2 jelly babies worth) then we walked up the track, with the occasional attempt at riding just to keep warm, the wind was now gusting around a force 6-7, so riding was a test as the wind was being funnelled down the hill directly to us, or so it seemed. We made it up to the pass over the Scar but at the top it was blowing a force 8 and walking with bikes was hard enough, luckily once over the top we dropped down into calmer winds and could bike down the track, this was rocky in sections, but a welcome relief from the walk up!
Follow the track down, past Goatfoot crags over a little bridge and look for a right hand turn through some bracken, to take the bridleway down with Torver Beck on your left. This gets you down past the old quarry and into Torver village. Back at Georges car and he offered to drive us up and leave Paul looking after the bikes, but some fool hardy heads said no, we'll cycle up and then George and Paul can drive up. It took us 10 mins of uphill to get back!
Anyway the rain held off and the windy climb was exhilarating, roll on next year (perhaps we'll do it the other way round...!!). Next Thursday it's the longest day, we'll be at Ings for Garburn pass.
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