On Sunday I led a group of unsuspecting (OK, slightly suspecting) friends through a military firing range. Warcop Training Area (WTA) is apparently one of the most active army training areas in the UK, best summarised by the MOD themselves:

Thankfully Sunday was one of the few public access weekends which take place each year. There are public Rights of Way through the training area, but you are only allowed to access them at restricted times. I decided this would be a lovely place to take everyone on this year’s informal MPS catch-up, reasoning that the SSSI designation and lack of people would more than make up for the possibility of stumbling across unexploded ordnance.

The first few kilometres up Scordale were lovely, then as we reached Scordale Head everything turned a bit ‘footpath free’. We were actually on a bridleway, but there’s absolutely nothing on the ground. We were surprised to find grouse butts up there (it seems we weren’t the first to make this observation) but there weren’t even any trods linking them together. Just as we were in danger of seeing a dip in morale, we reached the Pennine Way and the pace increased to High Cup Nick.

In zero visibility, we forged onwards before eventually dropping out of the cloud next to Murton Pike, with the more childish members of the group being unable to resist racing each other back down to the car. The general lack of bomb craters or military hardware did make me wonder whether they actually still use the range, but the Murton village website publishes the weekly firing times which essentially seem to be “all the time”.

Sunday’s jaunt followed a less-military excursion the previous day to the Far Eastern Fells, an area I’d not been to before. I arrived at Mardale Head a bit earlier than everyone else to suss out conditions and stretch my legs with a bit of a run. My route took me up around Small Water to Nan Bield Pass, a place I knew the name of but nothing else. I huddled in a stone shelter for some momentary respite from the biting wind while I tried to decide where to head next. With no visibility and a rapid cooling effect, I deemed it sensible to just keep moving so wandered up to the summit of Harter Fell before picking up the pace for the descent back to the car.

I was nonchalantly chewing on a sandwich and reflecting how much time I had in hand when everyone else turned up early, meaning I had to throw everything in a bag while delaying them, and then return to the car one hundred metres after leaving the car park because I’d forgotten the two OS maps which covered the route. Incompetency out of the way early doors, the rest of the day was pretty fruitful. No navigational mishaps; lots of chatting; lunch in a bothy; plenty of opportunity to study the inside of a cloud.

The route turned out to be quite a good choice, given that it didn’t involve too much derring-do for a wet and windy day, but did tick all of the “MPS bingo” boxes (including the less-fun ones like bogs and the occasional false summit).

After a run and a walk, my legs were pretty tired, but that shouldn’t have been too surprising given that Chris and I had also been to Whinlatter on Friday too. As per usual with mountain biking I didn’t take any pictures because I was too preoccupied with not crashing. However, it was the first time I’d taken the (new) Bronson up there since getting rid of the Rise, and my gosh did I enjoy it. I bored Chris silly with explanations of how well it just barrels over stuff, and he got to experience the joys of a full-suspension bike for the first time. Happy days.