April 2024

Wyresdale, Scorton

Easy

6.2miles | 10.0 km | 100m Ascent | 6.7 Naismith miles | Mary & Kate Taylor
For this walk we head southwest into Lancashire and park at the convenient Scorton Picnic site adjacent to the river Wyre, before we explore the riverside, the adjacent lakes, and the farmland in the Wyre valley as they come back to life as spring takes hold.
This is a walk without a great deal of change in elevation, and is quite short, so we class it as easy. However, it may be worth considering that in common with most riverside and valley bottom walks, how easy it feels may well change with the weather – heavy rain makes the paths muddy and slippery so if you are picking this walk for ease of use, make sure you pick a suitable day.

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Stocks Reservoir circular

Moderate

7.8 miles | 12.6 km | 190m Ascent | 8.7 Naismith miles | Valerie Eccles and Mary Pickstone
Bentham Footpath Group members are lucky enough to have the Yorkshire Dales and the South Lakes within easy reach. But our good fortune is not limited to that – we are also on the edge of the Forest of Bowland, which of course includes Gisburn Forest and Stocks Reservoir – which we explore today.
This walk starts from a car park next to the remains of a church that was relocated to enable the reservoir to be built, and then loops anticlockwise around the water – meaning that there is not much climbing.
We have been here before (September 2022) and at that time the water levels were deliberately very low – as part of engineering works to increase capacity in the long term. This time we get to see the levels replenished and the works complete – the contrast is striking. On the way round, we see signs of the buildings that were abandoned to enable construction, traces of the railway that enabled materials to be imported, and foundations for the village that temporarily housed the army of builders, as well as a more recent and very poignant woodland memorial site.

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Around Gilpin Beck

Easy

6.3 miles | 10.2 km | 393 m Ascent | 8.3 Naismith miles | Alison Kinder & Colin Stroud
Sometimes our program works out such that we are in the same area for two consecutive walks – and that’s the case this time. This walk is at times no more than 200m from our recent Winster Valley walk, and at first we though that must be why a couple of locations looked familiar – we later realised that it is becase our equally excellent route at Lord’s Lot used a short section of the same paths from Spigot House to Bow Mabble Breast.
What does separate this walk from the earlier Lords Lot walk is the weather – we were rather unlucky this time. Despite that, there is much to recommend this walk – easy parking, rivers and tarns, woodland, working farms and some great views. Even in the rain it’s well worth the effort.

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