Walking in the Forest of Bowland and Pendle. Terry Marsh

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      The track on to Clougha Pike is popular with cyclists too

      The track casts about to ease the gradient, and offers a splendid range of views that improve with every step. Follow this for 2km (a little over a mile) to its highest point as it reaches the 400m contour near another small quarry area. This is where you now leave the track by simply stepping into the adjacent heather, heading in a roughly southwest direction to locate and cross a low step-stile in a fence, about 300m to the east of Clougha Pike. The heather is not especially deep, and a rash of gritstone boulders ease progress a little, but this is trackless walking and care should be taken.

      Over the stile, bear right now to the trig pillar and shelter that mark the top of Clougha Pike. On most days you can see the fells of Lakeland, and the peaks of Yorkshire, the Isle of Man and the Clwydian Hills of North Wales.

      Set off from the top of Clougha Pike by following a broad peaty path, punctuated by gritstone, that roughly follows the edge of the escarpment on the left, and aims first for a large cairn. Then descend, again on a clear path, with a fenceline converging from the right.

      Where the fence and wall meet, bear left to clamber down a short rock step. Follow the wall for about 400m until it reaches a more level stretch, and here look for a path branching left (ignore the tempting ladder-stile ahead). Drop through bouldery terrain, and then continue the descent, now across a sloping rough pasture to a gate in a wall corner.

      Through the gate bear right through reeds, still descending. The path winds round to Windy Clough. Windy Clough is an ice-age ravine, and Little Windy Clough, also ice age, is seen clearly a little higher.

      Windy Clough, Clougha Pike

      At the edge of Windy Clough go left to a ladder-stile and descend through a shallow gully flanked by bilberries and bracken. The path is often overgrown but easy enough to follow, and descends through light woodland of oak, ash, birch, willow and hawthorn. Later, the path runs beside a stream, and passes through an area of gorse and on to a stretch of boardwalks around the edge of a marshy area, filled in spring and summer with rafts of bog cotton and bog asphodel.

      The summit of Clougha Pike is a fine viewpoint

      The path soon meets a track beside a gate. Turn right, and when it forks a short way further on bear left over a slight rise to a track junction, and there go left again to descend to the car park.

WALK 7

      Ward’s Stone from Tarnbrook

Start/Finish	Lee Bridge; limited parking (SD567552)
Distance	17km (10½ miles)
Total Ascent	475m (1558ft)
Terrain	Good upland tracks and clear paths; a little minor road walking
Maps	Explorer OL41 (Forest of Bowland and Ribblesdale)

      Even before the introduction of Access Land laws, this fine traverse of Ward’s Stone, the highest of the Bowland summits, was available to walkers thanks to the imaginative use of a concessionary path across the high ground. In a way it is a mirror image of Walk 5 from the north, and likewise shows these lovely moorland fells to good advantage.

      You start from Lee Bridge, from where a surfaced lane follows the Tarnbrook Wyre to the hamlet of Tarnbrook at the confluence of Tarnsyke Clough, Thrush Clough and Gables Clough. Tarnsyke, a tiny, sequestered hamlet, was once the centre of a small industry manufacturing gloves and felt hats.

      Here, near the last of the buildings, pass through a gate where the roadway gives way to a broad farm access track that soon runs along the course of Higher Syke. Go past the turning to Gilberton farm, and follow the track as it continues ascending the flank of Tarnbrook Fell high above Gables Clough and the upper Tarnbrook Wyre. For a while the path escapes the clutches of the infant river, but rejoins it as the two bully their way through a narrow ravine, blessed with a fine display of cascades.

      The summit of Ward’s Stone with Ingleborough in the far distance

      Above the falls, you cross the stream and ascend in a northeasterly direction to the col between Wolfhole Crag and Ward’s Stone, near a small puddle known as Brown Syke. At the col, a fenceline and drystone wall meet, and here you turn left, following the wall to a stile over a fence. Cross this, and continue following the fence uphill, channelled to a point at which fences meet, where you can cross the fence once more.

      Not far away stands a trig pillar, one of two on Ward’s Stone. By just one metre, the first trig you encounter is higher than the second, though it doesn’t look it. The summit plateau is largely bare, dotted with outcrops of gritstone boulders and littered with rocks. From the top there is a fine panorama, north and east especially, to the Three Peaks of Yorkshire, and northwest to the purple-blue uplands of the Lakeland fells.

      Continue west, past the second trig, and onwards towards a minor summit, Grit Fell – but don’t go as far as Grit Fell. Before reaching it you cross a track at SD565588. Turn left onto this and follow it as it descends past Grizedale Head and all the way down to rejoin the road near Rakehouse Barn. Here, turn left for the short distance to Lower Lee and the conclusion of the walk.

WALK 8

      Abbeystead Reservoirs

Start/Finish	Abbeystead; parking area at Stoops Bridge (SD564544)
Distance	5km (3 miles)
Total Ascent	110m (360ft)
Terrain	Woodland and field paths, farm tracks, a little road walking
Maps	Explorer OL41 (Forest of Bowland and Ribblesdale)

      This easy walk around the reservoirs at Abbeystead shows just how beautiful Lancashire’s countryside really is. The walk itself is not demanding, and enjoys a good mix of terrain, from bird-loud woodlands to clichéd babbling brooks, and fine views of the Bowland fells to the north.

      Leave the parking area and walk along the quiet lane southwards beside the Tarnbrook Wyre, soon intercepting the Wyre Way, a 41-mile recreational route that follows the course of the River Wyre from its source in the Forest of Bowland to the sea СКАЧАТЬ