free to be able to rate and comment on reports (as well as access 1:25000 mapping).
Finishing a North Pennines break with a rather abortive day, but one more blue marker on the map.
Great Stony Hill must be the easiest of all the hills around here – park by the roadside next to an actual bridleway visible on both the map and the ground, the great stony track up the Great Stony Hill. It's roughish but simple going; cut off by the old mines, slowly returning to nature, and steer a way through the grassy undulations to the trigpoint and a scattering of the promised stones. The views are mainly of other rolling rounded hills, not all too tempting, with Burnhope Seat prominent next door.
- Burnhope Seat
- Three Pikes
Straight back the same way as it started to pour, 45 minutes all in. Most of the rest of my North Pennines will be straight up and down the shortest way like this I imagine. Not sure that's something to be proud of – grand circuits might be possible – but really the steeper slopes are better walking than traversing the flat and boggy plateaus. There were a few more planned for this day, but that plan involved good weather and dryness underfoot, which was long gone, so just a quick return to a fast-flowing Low Force on the way by.