Today I'm back in the Forest of Bowland walking Grit Fell and Clougha Pike on the north western edge of the district. What was supposed to be a mixed day of brightness and high level cloud turned out to be quite the opposite leaving the moorland looking bleak which as a fell walker you've got to embrace, bleak is beautiful or so the saying goes. I left home later than usual to allow any lingering cloud to clear but if the sight of low cloud over Winter Hill and the southern Bowland Fells were anything to go by it looked like I wouldn't be seeing much.
The good news was Clougha Pike was clear but only just, but that was good enough for me. The walk starts from a little free car park just off Rigg Lane from which I'll pick up the Shooters Track almost as far as Grit Fell summit. Walking along a track good enough to drive your car over seemed odd but the track split the moorland and for the best part, the track was forgot about. Descending Grit Fell to Clougha Pike sure made up the effortless ascent though, it was mud and bog all the way, and not just any old mud and bog, this was Lancashire mud and bog, the wettest, and deepest of them all. |