Black Chew Head – 542m / 1778ft & Black Hill – 582m / 1909ft – 20/08/2020
I’m writing this almost 12 months after the event so memories may have faded a little. En route home during a lockdown break after a few days in the Lake District (and a couple of Wainwrights) I took the opportunity to kill 2 birds with one stone (and as it turned out got a 3rd bird for good measure). This would be a 2 more county tops off my list and a proper recce of a section of the Pennine Way that I would be covering on the Spine Race (delayed) in 2021, possibly in the dark.
So on a clear morning I managed to find a place to park at the entrance to the closed Crowden campsite near Torside reservoir as the public car park was surprisingly very full (I was soon to find out why). I had a hybrid of walking gear and running shoes and a pair of borrowed waterproof? socks but was itching to try and run a little of the route. Leaving the car I followed the track west to pick up the PW as it turned north across a couple of fields towards the valley of Crowden Brook and heading up to Laddow Rocks high on the horizon.
As I was planning to move quite quickly I soon passed a chap walking the same way, asking where the Pennine Way was, he followed briefly and mentioned something about looking for a vulture in the valley. I continued my walk/jog as it started to climb and passed a number of walkers and day trippers who had come out to see the female bearded vulture (Lammergeier) from Europe who had taken up residence high up on the rocks in the valley. I spoke to a few people as I passed and carried on my way uphill, keeping a look out for the vulture and my turning point to head off towards Black Chew.
The latter arrived first, no sign of aerial activity so juts before Laddow Rocks I found the path heading north-west for about 200m to a stile and turned right along the fence towards my first target. I could have gone either side of the fence, but chose to stay west as I knew that was where I would need to be eventually. The path was very faint and some boggy bits to skirt but after a few minutes I spotted the stake in the ground marking the summit of Black Chew Head and the high point of Greater Manchester at 542m.
Not much in the way of additional views from this plateau so I did my video and photo before deciding to retrace my steps back to the main path and PW rather than pick my way across a short stretch of unknown territory.
Just before I rejoined the Pennine Way I met a couple of walkers heading for Black Chew reservoir who had lost the rest of their group and asked me to tell the others where they were heading if I saw them. Taking on board the description of a couple of people to look out for I moved on and not long later met some people matching the description. As we talked we noticed the vulture flying across the valley and stopped to watch. I took out my phone in the hope that I could get some video. Almost on request the vulture circled towards us and did an amazing fly past as I scrabbled to get the action on my camera. Happy with myself and explanations made to the group of walkers I headed up over Laddow Rocks and gathered pace downhill towards the brook crossings where I have had some wet experiences on previous PW excursions.
These can be very deep, fast and dangerous when there has been rain, but today I was easily able to hop across and use stepping stones/slabs where available. I walked and jogged easily upwards on the slabbed path towards the Black Hill summit trig point where I met a couple of hikers doing a circular walk across the moors. Black Hill is a notoriously difficult, boggy part of the PW but nowadays is made much easier with the stone path rather than having to find a way across an unmarked peat morass. At 582m ASL it is the highest point in West Yorkshire and was as far as I was going today on this PW recce mission. I decided to cook some food on my little stove and set myself up as best I could out of the wind by the trig.
While the meal was cooking I had time to shoot a video – this was when I discovered that my filming of the vulture had been an epic failure – it seems I pressed the record button twice on my phone so got absolutely no footage at all of the great bird!! You’ll just have to take my word for it. Cursing my incompetence I recomposed myself, ate my food and packed away making sure I left no trace of being there and put my pack back on to commence the route back to the car.
I made fantastic progress jogging down the hill, a great confidence boost for the Spine Race, skipped across the brooks and worked my way steadily back up towards Laddow Rocks and the wonderful view down the valley back towards Crowden.
Heading back down into the valley there were still some vulture spotters focusing on a point on the rock face of Black Tor – I stopped briefly and managed to catch a glimpse of the bird high up on a ledge, but wanting to get quickly back to the car I sped off and found a short cut downhill and across a footbridge past the Outdoor Education Centre. A very satisfying little excursion in many ways despite the disappointment of failing the video effort. This would be my last sortie in 2020 and the very ambitious County Tops project would not be fulfilled on time (or possibly ever – see later thoughts).