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Some things, including the boggy and wind-battered top of Cheviot, are better viewed from a bit of a distance. This characteristic isn't always a bad thing; Cheviot, shares it with, for example, the sun - so it's in decent company.
This has always been my 100% top favourite walk in the Cheviots, a complete circumnavigation of the hill getting from North to South by way of the lower tops on its west side. The walk is a good length at over 20km; it has Scottish amounts of ascent (probably around 1,100m), although granted it's split into easy chunks; and the occasional routefinding puzzler toward the end. It also keeps you far from the crowds, so far as Cheviot attracts crowds. The first time I did it, I felt awkward because it didn't include any real summits, just tops. I'm a bit older and wiser these days, though.
So, with a sunny forecast and new camera gear (well, new to me - I've had a 30D before and I missed it so much I bought a second hand one for a fraction of the price of my original), I thought this would be an ideal route to see if I could remember how to use SLRs so I didn't end up coming back from a Scottish mountain with a lot of black frames. The pictures are very lightly lightroomed and but I'm trying to get away from as much fannying about with pictures as I've been guilty of in the past, so there's no cropping here; they're as I took them.
The route starts at Langleeford and heads up the Hawsen Burn to the col between Scald Hill and Broadhope Hill, and thence along the North side of Cheviot down into the valley of the Lambden Burn. As far as Dunsdale, it's the same route as in my previous report so I won't repeat myself, I'll make do with some pictures of this part of the route.
View back toward the car park. Those rocks on the skyline guide you home at the end but take forever to get closer.
Lola, at the start of her longest walk to date and just after running away from an adder
Lambden Valley
Cheviot, North
The Bizzle, with the hill I climbed last walk on the left of it
Reaching Dunsdale with The Bizzle behind it, the route takes a forestry road up through the remains of a plantation at Fawcett Shank on the lower slopes of West Hill, a Cheviot shoulder. It's easy going although occasionally boggy (no surprise there) with views opening up toward the College Valley, the least disturbed of the Northumberland approaches to Cheviot due to the private road.
A quick splash through the river at Mounthooly leads to the good track to the head of the College Valley. Hen Hole is the opening heading left at the head of the valley. The longest unbroken ascent of the day is the ridge dropping down to the right, and is only around 450m
It's also easy for more enterprising walkers to head straight up Hen Hole rather than going around it as I have here, but a half hour scramble in the middle of a six hour walk feels incongruous to me so I prefer to do it this way, peering down into Hen Hole from one of its rims rather than clambering up the middle of it to emerge in the maze of peat hags at the top. The path out of the college valley heads right, either climbing the slope directly at the head of the valley or following the path up Red Cribs to the mountain refuge hut at the top of Auchope Rig.
The view back from the top of Red Cribs to the College Valley is a lovely one which the camera can never do real justice to. I tried anyway, of course.
The mountain refuge hut is as good a place as any to stop for dinner, it being roughly at the halfway point and after the first bit of ascent onto Cheviot. You also reach the Scottish border at this point, and get a good view into the strange little rocky recess that is Hen Hole, somewhere which feels entirely out of place in the Cheviots.
The view down into Hen Hole from the Border Ridge is also a difficult one to do justice to.
The advantage to this route is that it leads you directly to the flagged section of the Pennine Way that runs across most of the top of Cheviot, so you don't (a) damage the ecosystem or (b) spend half an hour floundering around in dismal wet peat hags.
The Cheviot summit plateau is an acquired taste. I love the place now, although I much prefer it when I'm on the path than off it.
Cairn Hill at 777m marks the high point of the walk and the place where the walk bails on Cheviot, a mere 1km-ish away, and descends directly to its Southern valley, the upper reaches of the Harthope Valley where you parked. There's a good view over the desolate central areas of the Cheviots, with Cushat Law and Bloodybush Edge virtually indistinguishable as separate hills from this elevated vantage point.
This part of the path follows the route of the Harthope horseshoe over Cheviot, Comb Fell and Hedgehope but branches left instead of right where the Comb Fell ascent starts. It's a short, slippery and steep descent which I've never had the courage to try as an ascent route.
The path down into the Harthope Valley starts very well; beautiful bouncy grass, and I swear every time I come here the sun comes out at this point. The aforementioned Hedgehope and Comb Fell to the right.
The valley is an interesting one, though. There are many different versions of the path attesting to many different efforts to get down in some semblance of comfort. It's impossible. The valley is a rough and wild little place, and is immeasurably longer than you expect it to be. Routefinding can be a nightmare here as many landslips and overgrown or muddy sections make the natural line impassible. A good deal of random ascent up the valley walls to avoid obstacles or mud, and hopping over stepping stones, is unavoidable but never seems to be a nuisance. It's tiring after five hours or so, but I never find myself getting irritated as I do elsewhere when I'm forced to deviate from what's obviously the best route. An extremely long three or four kilometres get you back to signs of civilisation - a sheepfold, then a house with a proper estate track which you can follow all the way back to the car.
It looks very simple from this picture looking back up from near the end. It's not.
On the right day, it's a great way to spend six or seven hours in the Cheviots. OK, so you don't get any summits but by and large the Cheviots aren't about summits, they're about space, and wildlife, and solitude, and that Last Man On Earth feeling. You keep away from all the trade routes as far as Harthope Linn, a waterfall around 3km up the Harthope Valley and even that is relatively rarely visited.
It would be easy enough to bolt on an ascent of the summit from Cairn Hill, and either return to Cairn Hill and continue as I did or drop down to the estate road as directly as possible from the summit. Really, though, why would you bother? Visiting the summit of Cheviot doesn't improve the experience of this walk one bit. I'd recommend it to anybody in the area, although I'm not sure I'd drive too far to do it specially.