Swift Bros Conquer (two of) the Chipping Trigs

We left the Cobbled Corner Cafe in Chipping just after the scheduled start time of 8:00 on Saturday 19th July and headed for Fell Foot Farm at the foot of Parlick. We followed the early part of the Paddy's Pole route, contouring round Parlick summit to the low point of the saddle towards Fairsnape, thence keeping to the left of the wall. The weather was at its worst at that time, heavy rain and a fierce wind, but with the temperature not too cold. Fairsnape trig was achieved in 57 minutes.

Then we (John) made our first mistake by letting me navigate our way off the fell. This resulted in us meeting a six foot wall and wandering backwards and forwards for a considerable time, trying to find a gate or stile. We eventually got to the road but had difficulty later finding the footpath from the road to Beacon Fell, and resorted to asking the postman, but he hadn't much idea, don't think his van uses footpaths. When we eventually reached that trig point, where we took the photo, we had been going for a further 1 hour and 29 minutes ~ works out at almost 30 minutes for each of the 3 miles (as the crow flies).

At that point we decided that we hadn't the time to complete the full route and jogged straight back to Chipping, in a further 1 hour and four minutes, making a total time of 3:30. Distance covered ~ 12.5 miles. This is us on Beacon Fell, with the top of Fairsnape the high point on the long ridge between our heads. Parlick is on the right.

Further outings: obviously we've to aim to do the full circuit, but first we need to recce the Beacon Fell to Longridge Fell route. It would also be interesting to do the first two again now we know the route. We agreed that it had been a good morning out, and as with so many things, if we achieved it first time round it perhaps wouldn't be quite such an achievement when we finally do it.

EtU