On the North Yorkshire Moors

Derek A Smithson

Recently, I went for a walk along the northern edge of the moor, below the skyline and in the woods, out of the bitter cold wind. I had been here with some friends about two months earlier and was delighted to find that grass had grown over the forestry road. Since then we have had rain and the road was now liquid mud from side to side, marked with hooves, bicycle tyres and feet. As I went further, I turned off the ‘main road’ onto a path that had been turned into a gutter by tyre marks all following the same smoothest route. The pleasant walk in the woods had been turned into a ‘greasy pole’.

This is ‘popularity’ for you! I left the path and followed a buried pipe line which has grassed over, but still creates a gap through the dense pine trees. This is not a right of way, there is no path on the map or on the ground and there is a gate to climb. A good route, if you don’t mind a little trespassing. In the North Yorkshire Moors, we have forestry roads, we have fire fighting/access roads for the gunmen and we have paths. Among the more interesting of these are the remains of the paved ways created by the monks on their popular routes and now, popular paths are being paved again. So the human race progresses.