The New Lyke Wake Club
The Return Crossing – Walk 11 Graeme Noble
General Information:
Date & Start: Friday 15 May 2026, starting time [from the LWW stone at Ravenscar 9.50am] – Saturday 16 May 7.27pm at the LWW stone near Cod Beck Reservoir at Osmotherley. An east to west crossing.
Walking time: 18.28.
Actual crossing time 33hrs 28mins (36hrs allotted time as a Sexagenarian of 65+ yrs of age)
Total Walking Distance: 43.7 miles
Dirger: Graeme Noble (solo walk)
Weather – heavy and strong gales gradually settling down to full sun with a very slight breeze with some warmth in the air over the two days.
This was a cracking good walk (Gromit). On Friday 15th May 2026 Gerry and Julie picked me up from the Falcon Inn and deposited me at the LWW starting point at Ravenscar. To say the wind was overtly blustery would be an understatement. After the ritual of saying goodbyes, and the lament held in the wind, I began the return route to Armageddon Osmotherley. The walk itself across to Rosedale Farm Inn at Rosedale Abbey posed few problems and there was a genuine sadness at walking through Jugger Howe to see the damage done by last year’s fires on this part of the North Yorkshire Moors. The burned fence above Jugger Howe Beck walk (Lilla Howe side of the ravine), summarised in my mind – total devastation – the damage caused when I walked across here last year when the moors were closed for access.
The previous day I had called in a fire above Egton, which had come onto my radar walking across the duck ponds towards Beck Hole – there had been a lot of smoke drifting about, and I hoped on seeing the devastation on this section of the moors that this year wouldn’t see a repeat of last year. The landscape on this section across to Lilla Cross remains the same. Lilla Howe stands proud and Ellerbeck was remarkably dry. A little wet here and there, but nothing like the bogginess of four years ago. Global warming? There didn’t seem to be any trains running on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway and I sat having a sandwich just off the tracks before heading on my way to Hamer House.
Gerry had suggested a visit there on this crossing earlier in the year. Cutting across Simon Howe produced a little more wetness on the path to Wheeldale Stepping Stones and walking across the Roman Cists to Wheeldale Moor. I took the lower path here (close to the Booth Stone) and followed the track to its end and then followed the footpath sign which is about two miles east of Blue Man-i’-th’-Moss to rejoin the ‘Raven Stones’ path across the moor. It is a fast track for moving across. Recommended. Then Hamer House – there’s nothing left there apart from greened ruins and a few out houses on the other side of the road.
Hamer Beck was flowing fairly quickly, and while it comes to memory there are a lot of new dams over White Moor on the footpath following the ‘Blue Man’, which Gerry thinks are connected to an attempt to regenerate the dried peat which sits on either side of the path. Then what followed was a rather quick walk through to Rosedale after a steep hill climb and an evening meal with Gerry, Julie and Kathleen (one of the witnesses at my wedding 40yrs ago). On pg.43 of the fifth edition, reprinted 1973,(1) Cowley mentions, ‘some of the party finished comfortably in the inn at Rosedale’.
Without much adooooooo… following breakfast, I turned right out of Rosedale Inn and followed a track walked upto Ana Cross through the quarries. A good fell climb. So, I’d achieved the two extremities of Bill Cowley’s outer sections of the LWW; St John’s Cross and Ana Cross.
What followed was a great ridge route to Bank Top and then onwards to Hasty Bank. The pace moved on to just over 3+ miles per hour. My left knee started to burn out with the pace! Below the Lion Inn I needed to stop and take stock of my left knee. Significant pain had been occurring over the area of the knee and behind, so, I peeled the knee support back and opened the wound cover to see a little bit of blood. Black pudding extraordinary! I stopped for 30 minutes or so and had some lunch.
Rosedale Abbey had forgotten to make a packing up and I was using the previous day’s rations, which seemed to work out perfectly after fish and chips the night before. After my break I peeled away the knee support and the looseness of the knee felt better. Walking around the Dales’heads was a great pain reliever and at Bloworth Crossing I realised I had been knocking up the miles and the knee felt swollen but freed up. Nevertheless, the knee was slightly bleeding, rather attempting to make sanguineous drainage or a scab.
Just below Carr Ridge, in the quarries, I stopped at one of my favourite seats, day or night and, looked at the view with the thought of the Cleveland Plain behind me yet to be exposed entirely. Apple Maps suggested a slightly different alternative approach to accessing the cliff top route rather than the steps. I followed it and to my surprise it was a similar incline but graduated (rather than pretending to be a giraffe jumping over oddly created clouds) leading me onto the next challenge.
From Lordstones’ cafe area I gradually began to seize up and wondered if I would make the finishing stone above Cod Beck Reservoir. But, a phone call from my better half, and the comment, (‘you’ve made it this far and I’m getting close to Scotch Corner’) I realistically considered my position, found extra energy and sort of walked in to (literally) the LWW stone at Cold Beck Reservoir laughing insanely at an odd humour which had gathered me. Kate took the final photograph of me standing at the LWW stone sort of quite rapturous at getting to the end, and I took to the car where soup, sandwiches, chocolate biscuits, tea and equally importantly, a cold compress for the knee, awaited my attention. An achievement of sorts.
The ridge walking earlier in the day will stick in my mind as much as, ‘I’m at Scotch Corner, keep going…’commentary, which, really was saying, keep going or I’ll have ye’, as Rab C Nesbitt might ha’ seid.
Until the next crossing…in September/October ‘26. I understand that some type of (lunatic) certification may cross my path before then? I prayer to the gods of the underworld that it may and save me from the charms of the dales and their entrapment. (Well, Kate hopes so).
1. Cowley, B. Lyke Wake Walk. Dalesman Publishing Company, Clapham, via Lancaster, Yorkshire. (5th ed.). [1971 reprint 1973].