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A beautifully clear if very cold day, and a long but surprisingly easy-going route over the moors of the northern Yorkshire Dales.
From Hardraw, the route to the summit of Great Shunner Fell follows the Pennine Way on a walled lane through fields and then a sympathetic path over the open moor, flagged or at least stepping-stoned over most of the worst parts of some extremely wet marshland. It’s a pretty long and steady climb, and the rounded hills to the sides don’t really fill the eye, but - if you can keep reminding yourself to turn around – the broad green plains of Wensleydale are a welcome contrast. Despite a smart summit shelter, there isn’t too much spectacular about this flat, gently-sloped hill and it’s hard to think of it as one of the highest peaks of the Dales (it certainly doesn’t seem more of a ‘mountain’ than Pen-y-Ghent, for instance), but it feels airy and remote and somehow quite an achievement to get there.
- Pennine Way leaving Hardraw
- Dodd Fell & G Knoutberry Hill over upper Wensleydale
- Pickersett Nab over Fossdale
- Down Pennine Way, Penhill in distance
- Lovely Seat
- Wensleydale
- Great Shunner Fell in sunshine from flagged path
- Great Shunner Fell summit shelter
- Hugh Seat & Wild Boar Fell from Great Shunner Fell
The sight of the impassable-looking lands either side of the ascent route does rather fill you with dread at the prospect of the pathless three miles or so east to Lovely Seat, but luckily the going is much easier, even quite firm, on this side. A couple of short damp sections, notably at the start of the climb up from the road, but nothing too tricky, even after a wet week or so, and it’s quite a pleasant change to finally reach some steeper ground just before the summit. I can’t imagine the interestingly-shaped cairn here predates the naming of the hill, and so it shows quite a nice impishness that someone has built it this way…
- Back to Great Shunner Fell
- Descending to Buttertubs Pass
- Lovely Seat western scarp
- Great Shunner Fell behind the 'lovely seat' on Lovely Seat
- SE over the moors from Lovely Seat
- Southern Dales from Lovely Seat
The straight route south over Abbotside Common looks desperately bleak and challenging, but – eschewing that – it’s not far back down to the (wide-verged and unfenced) road that wends quite strikingly down the side of the hill above Fossdale Gill. Just before it steepens and becomes enclosed, a good stone-and-grass track heads off east above the limestone scarp of High Clint, and then in a very pleasant green-pathed loop back down through the hamlets in the valley to Hardraw.
- Fossdale Gill
- Head of Fossdale Gill below G Shunner Fell
- High Clint
- Drumaldrace & Dodd Fell on skyline
- East down Wensleydale
- High Clint
- Dodd Fell & Widdale
- Wensleydale