Norber Erratics

ON THE WAY TO NORBER


NORBER ERRATIC AND THE GANG

Today I hiked with the Thursday Ramblers again who had planned a special hike for the holidays. We started off from Clapham, a village just north of Settle. It took about an hour to get to Clapham from the base but it was a fairly straightforward drive and we had ample parking at the National Park Centre in Clapham. The village itself looked very cute -- as they all do. We were expecting cold and windy weather. After all, yesterday it went as low as -6C in Harrogate -- the coldest it has been since 1966! And today we would be hiking on the moors where the wind always seems to blow the strongest and the weather always feels colder. I bundled up with 3 layers under my winter parka. Well, we were very pleasantly surprised; the weather was rather on the mild side. The sun shone most of the day, the wind was gentle and we enjoyed some beautiful blue skies. At times I actually felt a bit overheated and did not even need my hat or gloves for most of the walk. I had been warned it would be rugged going and that much turned out to expectations. It was one of my most vigorous hikes yet with lots of uphill climbs, trekking across rocky paths and a small stretch atop some slippery limestone pavement. About halfway we stopped for a snack by an outcrop of limestone. That was when I began to feel cold. As long as we were moving I was okay. The terrain was really stunning. We headed towards a huge craggy outcrop on the moor. I'm not sure what it is called. Someone said it was called Norber which means Northern mountain. We walked around and up Norber passing some otherworldly looking landscape along the way and plenty of sheep. We eventually reached the Norber Erratics: huge boulders of sandstone sitting atop small pieces of limestone. The limestone is local but the boulders were moved here from elsewhere by glaciers during the ice age. We also passed many sinkholes and eventually came upon Gaping Gill, a massive underground chamber carved out of the limestone by surface streams. The chamber is 110 meters deep and is large enough to hold all of York Minster. Gaping Gill is only open to the public for only a few days each year when caving organizations provide a winch to lower people into the chamber for short visits.

The hike was a little over seven miles long and took us nearly 4.5 hours to complete including a 45-minute break for our snack. We were all tired and hungry and were happy to find a little tearoom open in Clapham. The poor proprietress had a bit of trouble serving all 14 of us as she was there on her own, so it was a long wait for our tea and soup and sandwiches but boy were they tasty when they came!