HARDRAW seemed the same after a night under canvas, but wetter. I sympathised with the bedraggled baby sparrows, did the cursory campsite ablutions and hummed Bob Dylan's Either I'm too sensitive or else I'm gettin soft'. Hardraw Beck was strong, the adjacent graveyard double gloomy.
Luckily, the Cart House Tea Room made up sandwiches, the day brightened and the fellside beckoned.
The start is a steady climb, a long diagonal up 700 feet, every couple of fields a house or two, a farm, then there's the bare rock and short grass above, a patch of bluebells hanging on where once a wood, the naturalised face of an old quarry and, at about the 1,500ft contour, the top wall.
This wall makes the walk quite straightforward, the stonework runs level for near a mile, you follow it, then you reach a good track to take you back down to Hardraw.
The wall marks the lower boundary of the Open Access lands; somewhere a couple of miles to the north, there is a pile of stones on Lovely Seat at 2,200 feet, but that's for another day.
It was grand here, above us silver/grey limestone scars of High Clint and Smuker Hill caught sunshine, rivulets ran from pop-up springs in the turf and lapwings handled the stiff breeze.
There were quite a few walkers enjoying the views across, up and down a Wensleydale aglow in the heightened colours of threatening weather and the curtain swish of cloud shadows.
The River Ure lies in big flat curves, the flat topped hill the other side and east is Addlebrough.
Eventually, we met the aforementioned track, it's called Shutt Lane, is grass and stone, part walled but open. And soon we were in the hamlet of Sedbusk, and Sedbusk Lane looked a nice option. It's a road in name, metalling and the law, but no racetrack highway, mossy and scented with sweet cicely. One Landrover trundled by.
And then there's a perfumed garlic wood edge and a pasture or two and you're down, with time for a wander round Hawes. Or pay the Green Dragon £2 an adult or £1 a child and see, especially after heavy rain, the impressive' Hardraw Force. It falls 100 feet from a romantic overhanging ledge, the lip of which was repaired after the havoc of July 12 1899.
The Green Dragon website quotes Barry Cockroft on that flood when "the amazed villagers saw a wall of water several yards high racing towards them it tore up their graveyard washing out coffins".
directions
1. Green Dragon vehicle entrance (sign), 10 yards, small gate on right, yard, gate, garden, stile to stone path uphill, stile, steps.
2. Squeezer on right near house and left to track (Shaw sign), ladderstile/fieldgate, cross road, farm track (fingerpost). Into farmyard, skirt large barn to your left then immediately right behind it, 25 yards, left to grass track on right of wall uphill for 50 yards (no signs). Wooden fieldgate, cross field.
3. Ladderstile, 2 o'clock across field, stile in highest corner beyond tree to moor, 20 yards then path 1 o'clock via sheepfold to cairn above scree slope.
4. Right and contour on grass track. After last rocky area angle on sheep paths uphill and head for top of trees then uphill with wall to right.
5. Right to sheep paths at wall corner and follow contour wall for two thirds of a mile. Ignore a fieldgate on right to grassy track.
6. Fieldgate on right and downhill on stone track, fieldgate, fieldgate to walled track, join road.
7. Right in Sedbusk on road, right at junction, 20 yards, path on left through trees (fingerpost), three gated squeezers, 11 o'clock to join outward route.
fact file
Distance: Three and a half miles.
General location: The Yorkshire Dales.
Start: Hardraw.
Right of way: Public and Open Access. Note that at time of writing, the Open Access is open for the next three weekends - June 2, 3, 9,10, and 16,17 - but is closed for the corresponding weekdays. For latest info consult www.countrysideaccess.gov.uk
Map: Drawn from OS Explorer OL19 Howgill Fells & Upper Eden Valley.
Dogs: Illegal.
Date walked: May 2007.
Road route: Via Hawes.
Car parking: Roadside in Hardraw.
Lavatories: None.
Refreshments: The Green Dragon Inn and the Cart House Tea Room.
Tourist and public transport Information: National Park at Hawes 01969 666210.
Terrain: Valley side.
Difficulty: Moderate if fine.
Please observe the Country Code and park sensibly. While every effort is made to provide accurate information, walkers set out at their own risk.
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