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- Dodd Woods and a Sunset - Date & Time: Sunday 14th Oct 2007. 4.15 pm start. Location of Start : Adjacent to Mirehouse car park, Cumbria, Uk. ( NY 235 283) Places visited : Long Doors, Dodd, Dodd Woods and back. Walk details : 3.5 mls, 1400 ft of ascent, 2 hrs 45 mins. Highest point : Dodd Summit 1646 ft ( 502m )Walked with : Angie, Jill, Ann and the dogs, Bailey, Harry and Bethan. Weather : Overcast and seemingly ordinary, but clearing spectacularly at sunset.
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The River Derwent as it leaves Bassenthwaite Lake heading for the sea. |
The wide approach to the start of one of many forest roads into Dodd Woods made an excellent parking area just off the A591. All the clothing and boots were dry after yesterday's walk, but the waterproofs were left behind as there was no prospect of rain today - hurrah ! This would be a shorter walk but the forest track climbed steeply and gave us interesting views, through gaps in the trees, towards Bassenthwaite Lake. Four ladies and one fella on the track up through the woods. The pathway has a thick Autumnal covering of leaves from the Beech trees in this part of the forest. The hause, the level ground at the top of the hill between the two adjacent fells, is marked on the map as Long Doors. To the left, the path climbs up to White Stones and Carl Side, ahead the roadway drops down into Dodd Woods above Lyzzick Hall, but we take the higher track contouring right and upward towards Dodd Summit. A new memorial seat is well placed to take advantage of the extensive view over Keswick, Derwent Water, the North Western and Central Fells. Further round the hillside, we get a full view of the Helvellyn Range over the green top of Latrigg in the middle distance. Those first five summits are etched on the memory - Clough Head, Great Dodd, Watson's, Stybarrow and Raise. The clear weather today gave us a view of them all that was singularly missing under the low cloud of Jo's 214 walk yesterday. The forest road has now been swapped for a wide footpath on the final ascent to the summit. This could be classed as a wheelchair friendly route provided you, or your assistant, had the arms and legs of Goliath ! Two of the girls pose nicely for a summit photo by the Scout Memorial ! Two more of the party are persuaded to pose nicely in front of the view down to Bass' Lake. Time flies when you are enjoying yourself and as the sky clears we find the sun sinking ever so fast in the west. The overcast nature of the sky has changed at the end of the day to give us a glorious sunset over Whinlatter Forest. Warm rays of evening light brighten the fell side opposite us as we start our way down. The sun is setting between Grisedale Pike and Lords Seat. Low sun streams across the North Western Fells. Grisedale Pike, Hopegill Head, Grasmoor, Eel Crags, Sail Fell, Barrow and Outerside. Descending on the paths on the western side of Dodd meant that we kept the view of the changing sunset all the way down. That is . . . all the way till we entered the forest !
Altocumulous cloud, lit from below by a red Solway Firth sunset, gave us a wonderful display at the next forest clearing. A high Cirrus ice cloud adopts the shape of a Klingon Starship or is it a Manta Ray ? Whichever you chose, the Sun and the clouds were certainly providing us with excellent sunset tonight. A sunset which was totally unexpected when we started this walk two hours earlier.
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- - - o o o - - - Technical note: Pictures taken with a Canon G7 and Ixus Digital cameras. Resized in Photoshop, and built up on a Dreamweaver web builder. This site best viewed with . . . a Shepherd's Delight. Previous walk - 13th Oct 2007 Raised glasses on Raise Fell - Jo's 214 A previous time up here - 29th December 2005 Wind Chill on Ullock Pike Next event - 18th Oct 2007 Backstage "Theatre by the Lake" Next walk - 18th Oct 2007 Causey Pike and Sail
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