Quote Originally Posted by anthonykay View Post
A 2-hour walk with some new diversions on Beacon Hill. Going up the North face of the hill, there is a gate onto the open heathland, close to the 210m contour. Today I found the gate locked, with a notice saying that to protect ground-nesting birds, this area of heathland would be out of bounds until further notice (this has never happened in the past). I took the recommended diversion, along some rather boring paths via the main car park, so on the way down I decided to recce a better route. I found a small, steep trod which comes out on the track which passes the aforementioned gate.

So, instead of the 120 metres of unbroken ascent from the Woodbrook valley to the summit, I will now have about 80 metres of ascent, then along the track with about 10 metres of descent, then the final 50 metres of ascent at quite a challenging gradient via the trod; although the first challenge will be finding the start of the trod. I have noted that it's by the first beech tree on the right after the double bend in the track.
That is the sort of detail I like - on Hart Crag for example, if it is under snow and the clag is down - "turn half right at the second cairn once it flattens out ..." can be so helpful, as long as I remember it of course. But if I have gone wrong in a big way in the past I find I do remember.