21.10.25 Bowland Knotts (SD 727 606)
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| Looking toward the old summit location of Bowland Knotts |
Recent trips to the
moors above Burnley have given a mixture of blue sky, warmth and autumnal
colours. All trips have been dry, with
not a speck of the wet stuff falling from the sky. This scenario changed on our latest visit to
John Kirk’s. The weather forecast warned
to expect fast moving showers with rain in between, and it didn’t disappoint.
John had planned our two
day stay with easy ascents and numerous meals out, which seemed a good
combination, and especially so as any prolonged walk would involve getting well
and truly soaked. It was a matter of
getting out and trying to time our ascents for a spell between the frequent
showers and hoping to remain relatively dry in the process. However, hoping to do so is one thing and what
was encountered is another.
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| Not my favourite weather conditions |
Our first hill of the
visit was Bowland Knotts. The summit of
this hill was relocated in December 2013 when the 1st edition of the
The Fours was published by
Europeaklist. This was at a time before
LIDAR was being used to analyse numerical data.
This relocation was subsequently confirmed when LIDAR became available
for this hill.
The summit relocation eased
its ascent, if indeed that is what is wanted, and today it certainly was. Its old listed summit is positioned beside
the trig pillar and south-west from where a narrow road crests these
hills. It’s an easy ascent from here to
the trig via a couple of small lumps on the way, following in the main a solid
stone wall that keeps to the crest of the ridge. However, its highest point is even closer and
just eastward of the high point of the road.
A brisk walk up and down wouldn’t take more that ten minutes and that’s
stopping on the summit to take the customary photographs of extended views
whilst bathing in the delights of blue sky and warmth. In all it took us 41 minutes to visit the
high point and get back to the relative dryness of John’s car. Only two of us made it this far as the third
was the sensible one and remained in the car after we realised that our initial
endeavours had taken us in the wrong direction, and even then we didn’t get to
the high point of this section of ridge.
We thought we had reached the summit; having set out in wet and windy
conditions following our confidently striding local guide, who unbeknownst to
the two incomers was going in completely the wrong direction.
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| Following our local guide toward the trig pillar |
Navigational errors can
easily be made, but you would think that three experienced hill walkers who
between them have completed the Munros, English and Welsh 2,000ft’ers, and in
the case of one of the incomers the Welsh ones on multiple occasions, the Deweys
for two of them, the other one didn’t venture into England and just completed
the Welsh ones, for one of them the Welsh Humps and between the three numerous
other lists, would have enough gumption to realise that following the ridge in
the direction of the trig pillar was in fact incorrect, and that the true
summit was in the opposite direction on the other side of the road. Well, they eventually did, but it took them a
while to fully comprehend this.
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| Heading toward what we thought was the high point of the hill |
The realisation of our
incorrect wander only happened when back in the car having got wet from the
initial endeavours. When the error of
our ways was realised I laughed, only a bit mind, as this now meant another
journey out in to the particularly inclement weather conditions. Thankfully it was only a short distance to the
summit via a small section of road, a cattle grid, a wet bit of ground and an
attractive rising lump that took me and Mark to the high point. John was sensible and remained back in the
car.
I had just enough time
to try and take a photo with the inconvenience of ‘memory card full’ flashing
on my camera screen. I could of course
stand and fiddle about finding a new one and inserting it in the camera for a
couple of quickly taken photographs, but it was wet, it was windy and although
my brolly had done an excellent job of keeping me relatively dry it was also
cumbersome to try and do anything else except for walking with it when it was up. However, I did take a couple of Mark on the
summit with his mobile phone.
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| Mark Trengove on the summit of Bowland Knotts (SD 727 606) |
I arrived back at the
car feeling unusually invigorated and with a broad smile on my face. Still wet though!
Survey Result:
Bowland Knotts
Summit Height: 430.7m (LIDAR)
Summit Grid Reference: SD 72767 60678 (LIDAR) (summit relocation)
Col Height: 343.4m (LIDAR)
Col Grid Reference: SD 71799 60697 (LIDAR)
Drop: 87.3m (LIDAR)
Dominance: 20.27% (LIDAR)
For further details please consult the Trimble Survey Spreadsheet
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