Day 15 of 30 Days Wild: The Sedgewick Trail on the Dent Fault with Settle U3A Geology Group

 SD695913

The Car Park perched on the side of  the A684 at the low end of Garsdale looked strangely familiar to me  .. as did the vegetation near the river Clough below.

For the geology day skip this smaller writing.

I came home and worked out that I had been to two places close to here before - 

To Aye Gill with Craven Conservation Group - and Linda Robinson from BSBI VC 65 - six years ago August 2015- and Pat was there too!!  See Aye Gill Pike - CCG-VC65 Botanical Surveying visit this link to see a picture of the same car park. Ayegill (556m) is 3 miles (plus) south east of the car park

The second place is Frostrow Fells - which I visited twice with Martha Newton on Bryophytes courses held at Malham Tarn Field Centre -it is a superb place for a variety of Sphagna and "brown mosses" (Mosses that grow in base rich flushes). This is about 1 and a half miles west of the car park, though we walked to it from a village closer to Sedbergh.

Vegetation? the sort of weakly base rich flushes as base rich water flows over acid rock - with  rushes, sedges, sort of M10 but more acid.. Purple Pinguicula vulgaris - butterwort. A plant that Tamsin noted near the river clough  was Trailing St John's-wort Hepericum humisiferum - I have only ever found this once near Settle. As search of the BSBI distribution map   shows it has been found 21 times in this hectad and twice in this tetrad - so it is realtively common here. the same map show it has been found once near Settle *near Rathmell) - that was our record in 2019.

A highlight of the day is that we were privileged to have chosen the day of the Sedburgh School Fell Race "The Wilson run". this is usually held in the term leading up to Easter, but this year because of covid was being run in June. This is an annual tradition in the school. See the Route here

A drinks station had been set up in the car park (2 and a half miles from "home") I met several boys walking down to Danny Bridge waiting to cheer on the runners, including one with a what seemed to me tiny drone - He admitted that if the wind got to more than 9 miles an hour he might have problems.

I showed one group some of the pretty Tormentil flowers in the grass.

A distant runner

OK Back to our Geology Trip.

Keith introduces the walk. (Howgill Hills in the background)

We set off

Down to Danny Bridge

There is still hawthorn in flower 190m above sea level.

Looking at the river Clough

Brachiopod fossils in the rock in the foreground

Chert

Anticline

The valley widens .this is where the actual Dent fault is
 at right angles to the river

need to figure out this Sphagnum,
there are sheets of it as I climb up the bank
after the last post near the second conglomerate site.

In the car park, one of our members prepares to cycle
back up to Garsdale Station,
from where he will catch the train back to Settle.

Back in Settle ... The Coop being shut for renovations for several weeks, I call in on Booths for some carrots . and meet some new residents of Millennium Gardens.

This year's Settle Flower Pot festival will start in July 

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