Any excuse really...

Any excuse, really…

It was the week between Christmas and New Year when, if you don’t work the festive period, you tend to lose track of days, time and pretty much everything. Luckily, apart from the obvious family stuff to attend to, I had something else to look forward to, and that was a day out green-laning with a friend and motoring writer colleague from the Yorkshire Post, Andy who just happened to have the latest Mercedes-Benz X-CLass pick up on loan.

Armed with a list of green-lanes that I’d researched on GLASS’ TrailWise 2 and loaded into my iPhone via the ViewRanger app, I jumped into Deux Smurf, our 1996 Toyota Surf with a flask of coffee and some turkey butties and began the hours drive over to Settle to meet up with Andy.

According to the map, our first lane is just after Outhgill on the B6259, and is an hour's drive from Settle, unless you’re following a motoring writer who knows these roads like the

back of his hand and drives a 3.0ltr V6 pick-up with 255bhp on tap, then it's alot quicker!

My plan was to reach NY7702-01 (TrailWise 2 reference) which was the northern most lane and head back south down towards Hawes.

Starting from the southern end of NY7702-01, the going was firm with a solid stone base and runs almost parallel with the River Edan with stunning views of the towering Great Shunner Fell to our right.

At this point I was happy to trundle along in 2wd high, gradually though the ground becomes softer and develops into single muddy ruts, so it was time to press the 4wd button as I don’t want to make a mess by spinning the rear wheels.

As the lane turns to the left the ruts become a little bit

deeper and we come across a ‘muddy step’ of around 20”. Deux Smurf is shod with BFGoodrich KM2s and found plenty of traction as the front wheels drove up and over on tick-over. As the X-Class was on road tyres Andy gave it a little more momentum and managed it easily enough, though the tow bar did ground a little.

The rest of the lane continued with ruts of varying depths, and both the X-Class and Deux Smurf coped without scraping as underneath the muddy surface it appeared to be a fairly solid base.

Not far from the end we came across a narrow concrete bridge with no parapet, which was fun, but we both managed to cross it with ease. In fact we enjoyed the lane so much that when we reached the end, we turned around and drove it back.

Our next lane, SD7896-02 or Lady Anne's Highway as I believed it’s named, was less than 5 minutes away as we headed back towards Hawes on the B6259.

Heading south it starts with a gentle climb with a gravel and solid stone surface and remains this way to the end. According to fellow ‘laners, it once had challenging deep ruts but now they’ve been filled in.

Once through a couple of waterfalls we arrived at the Water Cut sculpture by Mary Bourne and we stop to take some obligatory photos of Mallerstang valley below. We were fortunate to have great weather that afforded us spectacular views.

The sky may have been blue and the sun shining, but it was still December and bloomin’ cold, so we jumped back into the 4x4s and we trundled on our way.

The rest of the road is straight forward and remains a solid base with the exception of Hell Gill bridge which crosses the source of the River Eden, I’m led to believe.

It isn’t necessarily a narrow bridge, nor that long, maybe only 3 or 4 of car lengths, but because it has a slight bend in the middle it can be a tad tricky for wider vehicles, like a V6 X-CLass, for instance. Soon we were back on the B6259, and our plan was to pop into Hawes for lunch, but as it appeared, so did everyone else - and with no parking spaces and the sun hanging quite low we decided to drive another couple of lanes.

SD8486-01, or Cam Road is another green-lane that I hadn’t driven before, and it had a reputation for being quite a challenge around half way up due to

some fairly gnarly rock steps. However, I was told that the council had been along and graded it to the point that it was no longer as tough as it was once.

For the first mile or so it’s quite bumpy, I certainly wouldn’t want to take a Series Land Rover up, I’d have no spine left!

Arriving at the section of Cam Road that I’m guessing once housed the steps, I was faced with a climb of stone and mud that looked tricky. That said, once I’d decided on a line, I slipped Deux Smurf into 2nd low with her centre diff locked and slowly eased her forward with only a bit of momentum and I managed to reach the top without any wheel spin. It looked worse than it was to drive.

Andy was next, and watching where I drove he followed suit and the big X-Class made it look easy.

Next up was a rutted muddy section, and where we met our first group of 4x4 owners of the day, a Discovery 2 and P38 Range Rover. Although the D2 was on the other side, the gent in the P38 Range Rover had already had a few attempts at getting through but couldn’t make it due to getting hung up on his front diff, so he decided to turn around.

At this point, Andy had a worried look on his face, which was fair enough as his X-Class was literally brand new and only had 300 or so miles on the clock!

I however, was confident. So I selected second low again, edged my way into the mire, kept up momentum and got through without any issues at all.

Andy next, and although at one point he had to reverse a little due to a lack of momentum, the traction control and locking rear diff on the X-Class made mince meat out of it.

From here Cam Road became narrow, then wider and narrow again as we climbed further up into the sky. The only other challenge were a few slippery rock steps that gave the impression if you slid off them you’d plummet a couple of hundred feet to the valley below, but keeping to the left they were easy enough.

On reaching the end I concluded that this was by far my favourite of the day, a few good challenges and lots of spectacular views. If you’re going to attempt it, only do so if you have mud terrains and decent clearance as I believe the mud section has gotten worse in the last 5 months.

It was now 3.00pm, the sun was getting low and we were both famished, so we opted to drive down our next lane, SD8685-02 or Cam High Road then venture into Hawes, find a pub that was still serving food and feast like kings, or 2 fat blokes who’d been driving all day. Hang on, I need to amend that. One fat bloke, me, and Andy who’s as svelte and agile as a ninja!

The aforementioned Cam High Road was a little disappointing as it appears to have been graded at some point, I don’t know why, it was never that difficult. Stunning views, mind.

After our fabulous pub lunch we headed for Semerwater, posed on the lakeshore (the trucks, not us) and headed for our last lane of the day, SD9383-03, aka High Lane. It has a good solid base and a couple of steep bits and can be driven by any small AWD SUV with care.

By this time the sun had well and truly disappeared behind the looming hills and we were left with a beautiful glowing sunset that marked the end of a fantastic day’s green-laning. All that was left to do was bid farewell to Andy and set my sat-nav for the 2 hour journey back to Muddy Towers.

Arriving home I checked the mileage and I’d covered just over 200 miles. Deux Smurf, as usual had performed faultlessly, though I really do need to fit softer suspension, and the brand new Mercedes X-Class acquitted itself and proved to be exceptionally competent on some of the more gnarly sections, despite being on roads tyres. Overall it was a cracking day out exploring some great green-lanes with good company.

Just some of our new friends.