July 

8/7/2026    Hawes Round - Hike & Fly task

The weather changed drammatically, with light winds and blue skies replacing low clag and fresh, strong winds that had dogged for the previous two weeks.  Now ... for me at least, it was too hot. Never happy.

In line with my new flying philosphy I decide that a hike and fly task was more to my taste. I had two in mind, maybe three. I considered the new Chapel le Dale circuit but thought the wind a bit too south of west making some sections maybe less flyable and given the heat I didn't fancy the walking the tough sections I could envisage. Instead I went for the Hawes Round.  Again, the wind could be less than ideal - in fact it turned out to be absolutely spot on with with good thermals to boot. However, on the long walk up to Ten End it didn't feel  that way until I got higher. I expected the wind to be across the hill, surprisingly it was on.

The first section is 3.5k of easy walking until it starts to steepen. Then, I hit a snag. The cylinder was well off route (the track) and I couldn't escape the track due to a stone wall with a topping fence ... no gates either. So I continued on until 0.6k past the cylinder and figured I could back track along the top,  There was a possibility I could take off and fly it, but it seemed easier to walk. At this point I discovered an excellent, well used  path that led through signed gate, down the hill and where I could just tag before  wall intervened. Then it was back again ... in total an extra 1k of walking - but easy.

At this point, first one, then two gliders arrived overhead from Wether and I knew the ridge was working and there were thermals. I found an excellent take off spot and was soon away.

Dodd was very thermic, quite rough ones too, but with plenty of height I flew south and tagged the next cylinder under a building cloud. Virtually job done.   I climbed in good lift to 3,200' and set off over the back towards the TP at the south end of Wether.   There were a few glider flying, but surprisingly few given how good it was. Then it was on to the end on Drummaldrace for another TP ... the penultimate one.  Although goal was into wind and back into Widdale the thermals kept coming and the less beefy I ignored . Getting back proved very easy and in fact I arrived over goal with 2000' to spare.  For the next 20 minutes I just wandered around, thermalled a bit and generally enjoyed the views before landing back by the car. Job done.

Photo: The car/goal is at the road/track junction.

A quick pint in Hawes, a wash to cool down and I set off down Wensleydale to collect Tim and Alan followed by another pub visit. 

The beauty of the NCS hike and fly is you can pick your day/pick your challenge and getting it right avoids a lot of walking.   It also takes a bit more planning and thought. If you get it wrong it's usually just more walking to recovery the situation. Above all it feels more of an adventure where  even the walking side  throws as a few curve balls.