With Ulrike. We drove to the Stainburn Moor Car Park which was awash with off road bikers whom happily we didn’t see much more of the rest of the day and headed southeat down a very muddy track which leads to the trig point near Lanshaw Farm. Then on the same way down the farm lane to cross the B6161. Over this and still more southeast to reach Greenmires Lane. From here it is a short road walk to reach the foot of Almscliffe Crag. This has been part of the view on so many Yorkshire walks over the years I really thought it was time I visited. It looks quite imposing and impregnable from the northern side but the crags are all avoidable till near the very top where the scrambling to the top is very easy. From here we headed south down Merrybank Lane then across country through fields past close to Lower Bank Fram and Bank Farm to Stainburn. There were sheep in some of the fields and a vast number of seagulls in one of them. Cutting a corner by the church we headed up Church Lane to Braythorn. A muddy lane goes west from here and crosses the Stainburn Gill to meet the B6161 again. There is a bit of traffic on this so it was a relief to turn right off it soon onto Pill White Lane. It was turning misty up here now with the fields and trees rather lovely in it. But we were not high up for long, Down the lane we went almost as far as Lindley Bridge just before which we took the path through woods that leads to Lindley Wood Reservoir. It is very pleasant walking along the side of this for the short distance to the bridge over Greystone Beck.
Very soon after this a path (presently unsignposted) head north steeply uphill to land you on the beautiful – and again today misty – high pasture that you cross to reach Wood Top Farm and the road. A small gate gave pedestrian access to the approach to Prospecthouse Farm. Vehicle access was by a large, rather high security gate with an intercom for visitors such as you might usually find at the entrance to a piece of land patrolled by unfriendly guard dogs. So I was a bit nervous heading across the field up the footpath which bypasses the farm policies a little to the west. It’s well signposted at first as I thnk the farm people want to keep pedestrians out of their way but once past the farm things get a little confusing. The layout of walls and fences rather seemed to have altered since my Explorer Map was made and no signs showed where the path went but we went where it should have been over across a large horribly muddy field churned up by (happily absent) cattle and found our way safely to the woods by Norwood Edge. At this point I annoyed Ulrike by insisting on taking a short detour to visit the nearby trig point. She doesn’t understand about trig points, I’m afraid, so she waited while I went off to quickly collect it. In fact it’s rather a splendid trig point perched high on a big gritstone boulder that needs scrambling up. In the wet conditions this wasn’t something I fancied doing in a rush and I was beginning to fear the wrath of Ulrike if I made her wait to long so I left it for another day and rejoined her. The plan now was to follow the path through the woods and past Little Alms Cliff but we branched off , without realising, on a track going off right and ended up going a little further south on the south side of the woods along Lindley Moor but in end case comfortably back to the car where there was a big tin full of biscuits.
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