Across the Valley

It's occurred to me that I don't know if this valley has a name. The river that runs through it is Gill Beck, the wood that runs along it is Spring Wood, but for the moment the valley is just The Valley.

It's a side valley of Airedale, at the north-eastern edge of Baildon Moor, looking across to Hawksworth on the other side. It also marks one of the divides between Bradford and Leeds, with the far side being Leeds. I previously captured the solitary tree on the skyline in Windyridge.

Moments after taking this picture, a sgwarnog raced out into the field, but the best I could manage from that distance was this, leaving this one undisputed as my best sgwarnog blip to date.

The occasion of being up and out for the whole day on the moor was a guided walk exploring Baildon's Moor's geology. The walk was led by the West Yorkshire Geology Trust, as part of the South Pennines Watershed Landscape Project. The Baildon Moor part of the project is focusing in its history of mineral extraction, so we viewed cross bedding in gritstone quarries, remnants of the coal workings and fire clay and ganister extraction. All of which was interesting, but nothing quite matched this first view of the day.