Graham Bunn: It was with much trepidation we approached Hail Storm Hill last October. We'd read Trevor Littlewood's Hall of Shame piece, along with Ann Bowker's description on her website, and realised it wasn't going to be a walk in the park. It looked as though it would be a very wet, very boggy trudge. The plan was to use the Rossendale Way to keep dry feet for as long as possible. The best starting point is Turn on the A680 (SD813179), but we couldn't see a parking spot. We ended up starting by a mobile tea van near Ashworth Moor Reservoir, and took a footpath above Cheesden. The path was very wet. We then followed the Rossendale Way / Coal Road, which is a good track, to Great Lodge, where the track changes direction from NE to NW. Just after this a stream heads up to near the summit on the right. We followed this and found it surprisingly easy going and reasonably dry. This stream takes you to the summit plateau slightly SE of the top.
The summit plateau appears to be more water than hill. After wandering/wading around for a while we decided the top was close to a small pile of stones. If you want to just tick the top, return the way you came and you'll remain relatively dry. We decided to visit the 476m spot height to the SE. Due to the nature of the terrain (puddles galore) you cannot walk in a straight line at all, and you'll find it almost impossible to work out where the 476m point is. We then descended toward Higher Hill and followed a wall with exceptionally glutinous terrain, due to motorbikes. The bike track then headed toward Knowl Moor whilst we followed the wall around the edge of the moor to join the Cheesden Edge path back to the car. Although we could have remained drier by starting from Turn, we did have the luxury of a return to the mobile tea van, with coffee and Eccles cakes.
