Another beautifully wet and windy day welcomed the hardy souls of the York Mountaineering Club to Chop Gate, where everyone was extremely thankful to Hambleton District council fixing the parking meter!
After donning our full wet weather kit again, we headed up the wonderfully muddy hill behind the Wesleyan chapel, where Andrew did point out he needs to keep coming on my walks as I appear to not have used up my sunny and good weather tokens yet! Keep walking Andrew 😊.
The walk took us up Cold Moor and brought us out of the mud and onto open moorland where the chatter took us all back to our wonderful log fires and yummy warm Christmas dinners, while Hal explored the moor to his heart content, no sheep to chase today, sorry. The spectacular panoramic view of grey clouds and exfoliating winds made us realise we had hit the Cleveland way and on a sunny day the view is described as magnificent panoramic of the Clevland plain with Roseberry Topping on the distance, however today we had to settle for lovely shades of grey.
Turning west came with the glasses on our right steaming up and our cheeks turning red, but on wards we went all happy and content in new and older wet weather kit keeping us all dry. The silence came as we sprinted up the Kirby moor fueled by those extra mince pies, we had all had over Christmas until we reached another glorious view of even more shades of grey looking out over …….
But fear not our spirits were high and even higher knowing that just a hop skip and a jump the Lord Stones Café had a bench and a cuppa with our names on.
After a brief warm drink and picnic stop where left over ham and turkey sandwiches and of course a mince pie or Christmas cake and a doggy treat for Hal (and maybe some turkey!) We were once again hitting the moors as the liquid sunshine continued to pour on us. The conversations went back to reminiscing over the best way to carry an injured person of the mountains and plans were being hatched for the next great adventures as we sauntered down the valley back to Chop Gate car park. Another splendid walk with a fabulous group of people. Thanks to Steve, Andrew, Anne, Nicola, Dave and Hal for a great day out.
