Pendle Wakes
It's that time of year again.
Winter's morning walk IV will take us out of the Bolton area for
the first time. This year we are walking up Pendle Hill.
Weather
Warning
Last year the severe winter made the event
unsafe to run so it had to be postponed. Please keep an eye on the
page and/or the North West caching forum
to keep abreast of events.
The Plan
As usual we aim to be at the published
coordinates (Pendle Hill Trig Point) before Civil Twilight.
Meet at Muster Coordinates (see the waypoints
it's Barley Car Park) at 5.30am. At this stage I don't
know if the car park is actually open or wether it is locked
overnight. If its the latter then there is roadside
parking available in Barley Village. If this is what we need
to do then please respect local residents and try and keep quiet.
If its the former then its £1 charge in the car park.
This is slightly earliar than in previous
years because this is a longer walk than usual. (It's almost
exactly a mile longer than this January's walk up Cheetham Close.)
So we don't have to get up too early I have timed so that by the
time we get to the trigpoint it should have begun to get light. If
my timings are right then we should see the first light of dawn at
the Barley
Moor cache.
Roll Call
As ever I will do a roll call of people who
have logged a will attend. This is just so we know that everyone
has made it to the top safely. If your name isn't on the list for
whatever reason its no big deal, I'll add you on the
day.
Up Top
How long we spend watching the dawn depends
of course on the weather. Last year was quite mild, and with a
fantastic cloud inversion it resulted in us being up there for
quite a while. The year before was so bitterly cold and foggy that
we just had to keep moving or we would freeze (quite literally,
people's drinks and even their hair did actually
freeze).
Astronomical Speel
This event has been associated with the
winter solstice even though it has never occured on the actual date
of it. This was because for the 2009 event I just did a play
on words for the event title. This event has always been timed to
match the latest sunrise of the year, this does not occur on the
shortest day (i.e the Winter Solstice). If you are curuious to know
why,
here
is the answer.
Likewise its also associated with watching
the sunrise when actually what we are watching at the top is
actually dawn breaking, sun rise actually occurs about an hour
later. Pendle Hill is a great sunrise watcher's hill because it's
obvious descent faces East so if there is a visible sun rise then
we should see it!
The definitions of twilight are
Astronomical
Twilight - The stars begin to fade and dissapear.
On the day of the walk that will occur at 6-14 am
Nautical
Twilight - The horizon becomes visible and sailors
can navigate. On Jan 8th its at 6-56am
Civil
Twilight - This is what people regard as dawn..
7.41-am
Sunrise - The
disk of the sun becomes visible - 8-21am
Alarm Clock Award
I never cease to be amazed at the distance
poeple travel to arrive at an event which occurs at such an ungodly
hour. This year we will have a prize for the person who has to
set their alarm clock the earliest. Previous winners would have
been
2008 -
Dizzley - 34 miles from Disley to Round
Loaf
2009 -
Team Marzipan approx 61 Miles from North Wales to
Winter Hill
2010 - The
Imp - 120 miles from Lincoln to Cheetham
Close.
Pendle Hill
Pendle Hill is associated with
Christianity and Witchcraft.
The Society of Friends, i.e the
quakers. Have strong links to
Pendle Hill after their founder George Fox claimed to have a vision
in 1652.
"As we travelled, we came near a very great
hill, called Pendle Hill, and I was moved of the Lord to go up to
the top of it; which I did with difficulty, it was so very steep
and high. When I was come to the top, I saw the sea bordering upon
Lancashire. From the top of this hill the Lord let me see in what
places he had a great people to be gathered". This is why one
of biggest quaker centres in
the USA is named Pendle Hill. Today there is a large Christian
Cross made out of pebbles and stones on the side of the hill. We
should go past it on the day.
On the other side of the fence there is the
witchcraft. The trials of the Pendle
Witches of 1612 are the most
well known Witch Trials in the UK. As recently as 2008
a Petition
was presented to then home secetary Jack Straw
asking the the convictions to be quashed! He declined.
Pendle Hill is also a magnet for ghost hunters. Particularly after
the episode of the TV show Most Haunted. This had a Halloween
episode set on Pendle Hill and this
is apparently considered the scariest ever episode of the series!
My favourite witch story is a fantastic curiousity which means that
every now and then in the Winter Months you can see the
witches rise over
pendle once more!
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