Easy on the eye

Within minutes you will see our first objective, Wath Hill, a grassy mound with a copse. A new (May 1998) public right of way goes up it. Reaching the hill is very pleasant, and colourful now as the rowans are laden red and line every little stream and most stone walls. The agriculture is easy on the eye, and a farm sells risky in the rucksack free-range eggs.

We skirt our hill, following Raisdale Beck. There was a frog, always fun, and birch. Then a 300 foot ascent. I ate my sandwiches and relished the new perspective of Raisdale. We are in the middle of the valley, looking down on a farm in every quarter, and to a notch of Bilsdale, and to the rest of today's walk. The Park's authority have done well with this.

The beck leads us prettily to an 1849 mill via a blaze of early autumn burgundy from a line of fancy cherries. Then our main climb, on a fine sunken track, a long but easy ascent, you'll be half way up before you know it and enjoying big valley views.

There's a rare 'Green Lane' sign, ground excavated by rabbits and drilled by miner bees, bilberry followed by heather, and you are on the tops.

Scugdale looks inviting, and is probably overlooked being cut in half by the OS map, that is for another day. We continue along a wide ridge, through heather, by crags to Brian's Pond, peaty dark and jewelled with dragonflies. From here you can see Wath Hill.

My last mile was dramatised by gliders, winched up for their 15 minutes of circling, before angling down steep, air brakes out, for the tricky landing on the short Carlton Bank runway. I did a summer of this here but didn't take to all the hanging around for an all too quick delight. On the descent come the big views of the Cleveland plains.