GIVE ME MORE MORE MOOR!

  When I lived in Yeadon I trained on Ilkley  moor.  When I taught in Menston I trained on Ilkley moor. When I lived in Burley In Wharfedale I trained on Ilkley moor.  When I moved to Ilkley I trained on Ilkley moor,,,,,,,, for years and years including one Christmas Day up to my knees in snow!   But over the last couple of years,  having fallen a couples of times.....I've stopped..... training on Ilkley moor.
  Anxious to add a few more venues and a bit more variety to my programme I thought I would make a return visit.  Running from home would have entailed a hard steep climb so  I drove back towards Menston to give myself the "kindest" approach.  Running from home wasn't an option on this particular Monday when an easy day was pencilled in.  Checked http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/  and determined that it would be 6 miles out and back  taking me past the SHOOTING HUT and THE 12 APOSTLES

  The ascent to the shooting hut is testing but not too severe.  Enough for me to be driving off the forefoot and reasonable under foot on the wide track.   Heavy cloud cover today but reasonable visibility unlike yesterday when the moor was shrouded in low cloud.   After a mile and half the route starts to level off as the best of the distant landscape comes into view although there will be better days!
  Reaching the stone circle, said to have been built
over 3000 years ago!, after 2 miles I meet a solitary walker completing his climb from the opposite direction with the aid of his walking "poles" otherwise deserted; a good place to get away from it all.

Another mile on narrower paths which demand a bit of tricky dancing footwork and I reach the turning point. TRIGPOINT 0704  , sharing the spot with a less formal cairn of stones.  Like thousands of runners over the decades I have sped past this summit without much of  a second thought and certainly without stopping.  Today, being an "easy" day, I stopped and took a couple of shots.  TRIGPOINT is of course the popular name for triangulation pillars used by the Ordnance Survey to map out the country.  Placed on high to give a direct sight line from one to the next. 

My reading tells me that an accurate compass built into a telescope would have been sat on top of the pillar so that precise bearing to the nearby "trigpoints" could be taken.  Hence triangulation !
Fascinating! Now I wouldn't have learnt all that without doing this run.  Bear in mind I had no geography lessons beyond the age of 13.
                             Here is a picture of the top of the pillar.......so the next time you are looking for somewhere to mount your theodolite you know where to go.............

                                 
  
  On the side of the pillar  below the OS marking is what apparently is called....wait for it....the FLUSH BRACKET NUMBER(?)....in this case 2959
  So anyone tired of bagging or even completed bagging Monroes in Scotland  or even wanting a change from train spotting can walk or run to similar points ticking off these FBN's!  But beware there are several thousands of them; fortunately  they are not all on summits such as Ilkley moor. 
  I only "garminned" the descent today which proved to be the pre measured 3 miles in 27.15 so when I return to do the run again I'll be looking for about 60 minutes on the watch and a better set of photos on the camera in contrast to the rain bearing clouds of today.
 Good views coming back down the trail over to the Chevin above Otley.  Not a great day for flights in and out of Leeds Bradford airport ...........