George Wilkinson has a grand day out when he climbs the Cleveland Hills at Chop Gate.

WE SET off late to give the sun time to burn the mist off the Cleveland Hills, and a dozen or so cars were already lined up in the car park at the village of Chop Gate in Bilsdale. The booted were heading off in all directions.

Our choice of route was last minute, almost instinctive, over the River Seph and straight up the flank of the valley, following a sunken horse-sled track, avoiding the gorse, looking back every hundred foot or so down to the diminishing village. Warming with the steep 500-foot climb and the soft sunshine, taking it easy for the obligatory 20 minutes muscle loosener.

Twenty minutes brought us to 1,000 feet, to shale and the signs of old ironstone mining. And then the top, the heather, and the big views of Bilsdale and the side valley of Raisdale. We watched a couple of motorbikes slice through the main valley at incredible speed and then turned and ambled on to a stone and cairn at Cock Howe at 1,300 feet.

Here we could have taken a turn to the south where a mile away the TV mast stood pencil thin, broadcasting the news. This didn't appeal, so we searched out a path with a view down Arns Gill and marked by five four-foot high stones, a couple engraved 1808. Without these the path would be uncertain as the heather had been burned, the line on the ground gone, a ground warm to the touch, black, smouldering, attended to by a gang of gamekeepers.

The air was acrid, we tied on handkerchiefs bandit style and accelerated round to the head of Scugdale where we settled in the cushions of heather and had our sandwiches with a straight view down the valley. The sky held low gliders and high vapour trails; the tracks, slow walkers and a pair of high-speed mountain bikers.

Our descent was quick, down Green Lane (track and sunken path) to the mill on Raisdale Beck. We saw a turf roofed shed and downhill ploughing, brushed past ten foot tall brooms, trained our glasses on thorn trees solid with chaffinches and fields full of fieldfares and wandered our way down Raisdale, an eye on the wheeling lapwings.

And when Raisdale joined Bilsdale we were back, to compare notes with other returning ramblers. Everyone had had a grand day, even the ones who got lost in Arns Gill.

Fact file

Distance: Five and a half miles.

Time: Three hours.

General location: Cleveland Hills.

Start: The village of Chop Gate.

Right of way: The complete route is along public rights of way.

Date walked: Saturday, March 22, 2003.

Road route: B1257 via Helmsley or Stokesley.

Car parking: Free village hall car park at southern end of village.

Lavatories: Village hall.

Refreshments: Inn.

Tourist & public transport information: Helmsley TIC 01439 770173.

Map: Based on OS Explorer OL26 North York Moors western area.

Terrain: Valley, and moorland tops.

Points of interest: 'Chop Gate' may derive from the old English 'cheap' and may refer to pedlars or packmen, though no old road followed the valley floor, they kept to higher dryer ground.

Difficulty: Moderate in fair weather, an 800ft climb to 1,300 feet, part steep.

Dogs: Suitable.

Weather forecast: Evening Press and recorded forecast 0891 500 418

Please observe the Country Code and park sensibly. While every effort is made to provide accurate information, walkers set out at their own risk.

Directions

When in doubt look at the map. Check your position at each point. Keep straight on unless otherwise directed.

1. From car park, bridge over stream to track straight uphill (fieldgates).

2. Fieldgate then sharp right-hand bend, 10 yards, path up bank on left, straight uphill (signed). Keep fence/gully/gorse to your left. Ignore stile on left, stile, path curves uphill (wall on left, pine copse on right), 100 yards, track/path in heather to right of conifer wood gently uphill.

3. Stone pillar on Cock Howe, 30 yards, cross private track, 300 yards on path downhill.

4. Faint path on right marked by four-foot high stone pillars between 100 and 200 yards apart.

5. Left for 20 yards to triangular tracks junction, right to main, stony track.

6. Fieldgate, track curves right then straight downhill, ignore fieldgate into field (by Green Lane Sign) as track continues to left of wall, fieldgate to sunken tree-lined path.

7. Fieldgate on right (by turf-roofed shed), 11 o'clock across yard, stile, dog-leg down and across track to stile, 11 o'clock across field, left of two fieldgates, path, stile and left to concrete drive.

8. Left-hand bend uphill, 100 yards, right, 25 yards, stile, squeezer, 11 o'clock, stile, stile/fieldgate into farmyard and left. Right to road. Bridge over stream, stile on right into field, follow stream to village hall.

Click here to view a map of the walk

Updated: 12:28 Saturday, March 29, 2003