The New Lyke Wake Club
The Outward Crossing – Walk 10 – Graeme Noble
General Information:
Date & Start: Wednesday 13 May 2026, starting time [from the Trig Point at Beacon Hill Scarth Wood Moor near Osmotherley 10.12am] – Thursday 14 May 9.34pm finish at the LWW stone near the beacon at Ravenscar]. A west to east crossing.
Walking time: 19.47.33
Actual crossing time 35hrs 24mins (36hrs allotted time as a Sexagenarian of 65+ yrs of age)
Total Walking Distance: 44.5 miles
Dirger: Graeme Noble (solo walk – claiming the extra 12hrs allotted time for being over 65yrs+).
Weather – on the first day it was cold with blustery showers and as late afternoon set in extremely windy from Round Hill to the Lion Inn. Day two gave weather that was fairly dry with windy weather on the tops, warm in the valley areas, until Newton House Plantation where intermittent heavy hailstone showers continued to the end of the walk. Exceptionally cold and windy from 6pm onwards.
Prior to beginning the walk, I had emergency treatment three weeks earlier, when I fell on the descent from Walla Crag in the Lake District. An odd accident as I missed my footing and tumbled some 15-20 feet before coming to a stop, realising that I was in serious trouble as blood ran down my leg into my boot and I could see inside my left knee. There was other damage but seeing the blood flowing was a bit of a show stopper! Eventually, I was helped by Keswick Mountain Rescue and visited A&E Lancaster after being shoved through the NHS to the appropriate hospital to have the puncture/gash washed out, cleaned and stitched. A time line of recovery over the next three weeks with me testing out the leg, knee and associated pain meant that a knee support was needed, and prayer to the watchful gods and goddesses of the moors, that I wouldn’t damage anything following the stitches being removed a week earlier to the day of the walk.
So, with some trepidation I travelled by three trains and bus to the B&B, feeling my way around the knee and recognising that my feet and legs preferred going up and being on the flat rather than going in a downward motion. Well, part of the reasoning for continuing with the walk was that I had committed to the Wainwright’s Society Challenge 61 (Wainwright in his Coast to Coast Walk Book [C>C],(1) found in the latter part of the book after the index and offered by Wainwright as, ‘Some Personal Notes in Conclusion’, 1973, pg.xvi, writes of an alternative to his Robin Hood Bay ending to the C>C walk, utilising the Lyke Wake Walk (LWW) crossing from Osmotherley to Ravenscar without defining the precise route that Bill Cowley described in his Dalesman Books of the LWW from 1959-1973) to raise funds for one of the rescue teams (the whole challenge of 61 sections will ultimately be shared by all the rescue teams that straddle the C>C walk) that I had needed to help me from the descending path at Walla Crag, where I had previously fallen.
There was also some other thinking going on; to join up sections of the LWW that I had walked previously in the hours of the night, therefore not seeing any of the landscape covered on those crossings. I was determined to walk Bill Cowley’s alternative routes of the LWW, found in early editions of the LWW in an adventure of a return walk which I write of below. I think being a fairly determined person in nature pulled me through, but the return route (walk 11) which I’ll describe later, nearly finished me off.
Planning the route for walk 10 had been fairly simple. The first stage from the trig point at Beacon Hill was a homage tribute to Bill Cowley’s original starting point (see early editions) and which was the original starting place for the LWW. That was a no brainer! The next thought was, ‘how about walking some of the sections you have done previously, in the dark – this time doing them in the light and actually seeing the landscape’ (yes, I have an internal voice, most of us do!).
The next stage was walking through to Raisdale Mill following a stop at the seat dedicated to the memory of Ian Jeal at the T-junction near Huthwaite Green. There I have sat, eaten, drunk tea, noshed biscuits and pondered on Clain Woods and the final pull when walking east to west. Again, I did the same thing, however, standing for part of the time in the adjoining garage to the seat as heavy rain appeared from nowhere. A rather peaceful daybreak from the B&B at Ingleby Arncliffe, broken by wet weather and taken with some solemnity wondering what the day’s weather offered.
On page 20 of the 1971 fifth edition of the LWW, Bill Cowley (BC) describes the route I took as the third possibility. So, it was after leaving the classic route at Huthwaite Green, ‘by the Scugdale road and Raisdale Mill to Chop Gate…and so up to Botton Head by Bilsdale Hall and Medd Crag’, I followed as a BC anchorite. The rucksack feeling as heavy as the chains whipping my back. I did wonder if any blood was coming out of the knee , but left looking to the end of the day’s walking.
I chose this route because the previous time I walked through there it was approximately 2am and the weather was extremely challenging with heavy rain, wind and hailstorms, and in the dark, so, visibility was nearing zero in heavy rain and hail during that night. This varied valley route, in the sense of an undulating landscape, underfoot, with some steep climbs, I found offered superb views of Whorlton Moor, Snilesworth Moor, Bilsdale West Moor and the surprise of Barker’s Crags above Scugdale Hall; I had never seen those in the dark on a previous crossing.
Raisdale (Reith’s Valley [an Old Norse name]) Mill (now private housing) was formerly a water powered corn mill, and on this occasion I chose to stop for a few minutes. For me it offered a rather pastoral romantic setting in comparison to the busyness of its original function as a mill with Raisdale Beck running through the hamlet, and now, in a different temporal world sat calmness; the peaceful atmosphere with the winding road running through to Chop Gate, known locally as Chop Yat, its name probably coming from the Old Norse word ‘kaupr’ meaning ‘pedlar’ or ‘chapman’, and ‘gata’ which means ‘road’.(2)
Interestingly, Bill Cowley, 1973, pgs.46&47 mentions, ‘I took the Northern Route…I little thought that a month later the bulldozers would come into ruin that track…’. So , I felt rather blessed in having passed through such a beautiful area (restored by nature) as I arrived at Bilsdale Hall and the eventual climb onto Urra Moor and Round Hill with the Hand Stone beckoning me to proceed uphill from Medd Crag and converse eventually with the Face Stone just up the path and the Trig Point on Round Hill. I stood with my hands cradling the head of the Face Stone, beginning to understand its resonance of just sitting looking over the moors, knowing that the following few miles to the Lion Inn would cover some great ridge walking.
Meeting Gerry and Julie at the Lion Inn was rather an odd moment. Not in meeting them, but the sheer volume of people there I found to be quite overpowering and incredible in comparison to what I have experienced when walking in late in the evening (east to west walking) and after having experienced mile upon mile of meeting no one on this particular day. The volume of people and noise and having to make instantaneous decisions came as quite a shock. The Lion Inn, on this occasion, I later found, was/is suffering from a lack of water and washing one’s body I found was impossible to get fully clean. Apparently, the Inn needs to bore further to get their water supply upto pressure. However, the company over dinner and conversation was good and eventually I retired to bed.
After a decent sleep and breakfast I picked up my packed lunch and headed off to follow the Northern Route (1971, pg.35) (3) following the George Gap Causeway (Path), the Cut Road (Path) and the Duckponds (I called in a fire on the moors at Egton from above the Duckponds during this part of the walk) towards Beck Hole where this time I continued onwards without a stop off for a pint, eventually getting onto the Whinstone Ridge.
This is where the walking fun began, eventually, I reckon adding a couple of hours to the crossing. Below York Cross there is still terrible devastation following last year’s disastrous Moors fire. The ground is flooded more than when I crossed last year (walk 9) and the only way to proceed was by clambering up and down over the fire embankments. Loose peat is not a particularly safe way to proceed, but the footpath below is lost for the present. In fact, a snorkel may be a handy bit of kit to get across to John Bond’s Sheep House and then upwards to the remains of John Cross. There has been some serious tree felling before John’s Cross, and this slowed me down.
After this the navigation back to Biller Howe Dale Slack and the Flask Inn was a lot easier and I picked up some speed, although heavy hailstones raining down in random showers provided some entertaining encouragement to keep moving. At the Flask Inn, John the new publican poured me a nice pint and spoke of the benefits of the inn, rooms and food etc., welcoming me to a pint of bitter with a roaring fire which rather dried me out and lifted my spirits to get across Stony Marl Moor and arrive at the LWW (he said that he and his wife Nicola would welcome any LWWalkers to their hostelry) end of the route at Ravenscar, where Gerry met me halfway over the moor, and Julie patiently waited at the car with some rejuvenating food and a lift to the Falcon Inn. The Falcon Inn offers great rooms, a great breakfast, a great wash, a great sleep and great views across to the sea from the breakfast room. Then off for walk 11…the return.
- Wainwright, A. A Coast To Coast Walk. Westmorland Gazette, Kendal, Westmorland. [1973].
- Wright, Peter (2005). Yorkshire placenames. Skipton: Dalesman. p. 32
- Cowley, B. Lyke Wake Walk. Dalesman Publishing Company, Clapham, via Lancaster, Yorkshire. (5th ed.). [1971].