Darwen Tower

I've just finished my write up for my own blog of today's run and, to be brutally honest, couldn't be bothered writing a whole new one so have just cut and pasted it below and edited it ever so slightly.  Hopefully t'Y will add some photos later on.

After passing all the tests (though I'm not sure exactly what these were) I have finally been allowed contributor privileges on this blog.  All I had to do was come up with a user name and, after much deliberation, I remembered the telling off I got from KLM on our last trip to Darwen Tower when I was complaining about getting lost and he said 'you're never lost, just temporarily misplaced' and decided that would be a great user name.

I made my first post on the blog last night asking if anyone was UTUPing tomorrow and KLM replied that he was so I got up on this beautiful sunny morning and went to the UP at the UT.  CW also turned up, having already run a couple of miles from his car, followed shortly by t'Y who turned up just as we were about to leave.  I'm wondering now how Ed got the nickname 'the unready' and not Gordon?

We set off and headed up to the top barn, the pigeon tower car park and then along through the woods to Dangerous Corner.  On the way from Dangerous Corner to the turn off to head over to Spitlers, Gordon decided to have a race with some road riders and got so carried away that he went straight past our turn off and didn't hear us calling for him to come back.  Eventually he turned round though and we all ran down towards Higher Hempshaws.  Shortly afterwards CW left us and headed off towards Lead Mines Clough and the rest of us continued to Spitlers before dropping down to Piccadilly on Belmont Road.

We crossed the road and took the path through the woods past Hollinshead Hall, coming out onto Tockholes Road, then crossing over and heading towards Darwen Tower.

We split off at this point, with KLM and me taking the low route past New Barn Farm which then goes up very sharply via Aggie's Staircase, and t'Y taking the route which gradually climbs up.  It was quite well timed as we all ended up at the top of Aggie's at around the same time and then carried on along to the Tower.  Despite being pretty tired at this point, having just climbed up Aggie's, we climbed the stairs to the top of the tower as, to be honest, it would be rude not to.

After having a photo shoot at the top of the tower, we set off back down again and took the route t'Y had taken up.  I was quite surprised by this route as there still seemed to be a lot of uphill sections on it, even though we were heading back downhill.  Odd.

We crossed back over Tockholes Road and made our way back through the woods to Piccadilly.  We took a different route back and headed up to the top of Great Hill.  I haven't been up that side of Great Hill before and it's quite a steep trek compared to going up the other ways.

From Great Hill, we went over to Round Loaf, again splitting up to take different routes to see which was best.  T'Y and I took a more southerly route and KLM more northerly.  There wasn't really anything in it distance wise as we all joined at the same point at the same time.

From Round Loaf we dropped down to the Bomber Memorial and then into Lead Mines Clough.  We then headed up the Sheep House Lane a little bit, before turning off on the right through the fields to Dean Wood House.  We followed Dean Brook, went up the steps, through the field and out to the stocks at Rivington before heading back to the car park.

We bumped into John Coope just before arriving at the car park, who had been out for a walk, and he followed us back to the cars where we had a quick chat and a stretch before heading home.

To get some of the place names stated above, I've been studying my OS map of the area and I'm now getting all anxious that there are so many footpaths on there which I haven't ventured along yet and I'm wondering how I can fit them all in, there just aren't enough hours in the day.  I just want to explore and try not to get too 'temporarily misplaced'.

Run Stats:

Weather = great!
Company = great!
Route = great!
Overall = great!

Total Distance - 14.3 miles

http://www.strava.com/activities/147599443