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Back on the Pennine Way

Back on the Pennine Way


Postby nigheandonn » Thu May 16, 2019 1:56 pm

Date walked: 19/04/2019

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Horton-in-Ribblesdale to Hawes
Friday 19th April


After five years I was back to pick up the Pennine Way where I'd left it - this was a good day although very warm, up past Ribblehead and the Cam High Road with the iconic hills still around me.

Full report: Horton to Hawes via Dodd Fell Hill


Hawes to Tan Hill
Saturday 20th April


A very hot and very uphill day, five miles up to the summit of Great Shunner Fell, and down to the welcome tea room at Thwaite, only to go steeply up again onto Kisdon and a nice walk above upper Swaledale, and a final climb to the cheerful chaos of Tan Hill.

Full report: Hawes to Tan Hill via Great Shunner Fell


Tan Hill to Middleton-in-Teesdale
Sunday 21st April


The Yorkshire county boundary does a little jiggle to the north of the road to take in Tan Hill and the ground around it, but for some reason the National Park boundary doesn't, although it happily takes in odd scraps of ground north of the road containing nothing in particular. Maybe Tan Hill just isn't the kind of place they want to be associated with.

I remembered this morning to take a proper picture of Tan Hill, and of the signs that say it's the highest - and without all the crowds, too.

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Tan Hill

The door to the western room at Tan Hill has a 'Welcome to Cumbria' sign on it, but that's an exaggeration, as Cumbria is half a mile down the road. But as soon as I left the road and headed onto the moors I was in County Durham, a place which always surprises me with the way it stretches out inland, because I walked its coast in not much more than a day. The north Pennines were still not much more than a hazy line ahead, but I had definitely left the Dales and their distinctive tops behind

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Moorland

This was the first true moorland walking of this trip - wet feet, not much path, nothing in particular to see. Occasional white posts marked the way, and further on a few cairns, but there was surprisingly little path in places, and it was quite a long damp walk before I finally met a better track beside Sleightholme Beck.

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Sleightholme Beck

The track joined up with another, which had a sign for Tan Hill on it - I wasn't really surprised when a countryside kind of car came past me, but neither an enormous campervan or a fancy car so low that its underneath scraped on the ground when it drove over a pothole really seemed to belong on the very rough track, which turned out have an 'unsuitable for motors' sign where it joined the actual road.

I went past one farm, left the road again, crossed a substantial bridge, climbed up a slope to pass another farm at the junction of the main path and the Bowes loop, and came more gently down to cross the river at God's Bridge. There was so little water in the river that it wasn't really needed - I did actually walk back across the river while taking pictures - but it was a definite and solid slab bridge, more impressive than I had expected.

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God's Bridge

It was a fairly steep climb up to the main road and the littered subway - I think two different people had grafittied the waymarker sign, which made me laugh, although the original message was kind - I was about halfway through this second of three sections, so it seemed about right.

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Halfway

The far side was more moorland walking, but a bit less soggy - a climb up to the pile of stones which for some reason is called Ravock Castle, where I ate some rather melted mint slice as a very late elevenses.

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Ravock castle

The path led on down a gentle slope to a valley and crossed an estate track and rose again on the other side - there was also a black hut in the valley, with a sign on it, and instead of saying 'private keep out' as I expected, it said 'shelter' with an arrow pointing to an unlocked end door - a kind thought, because it was a lonely place. The shelter was just a tiny room filled with plastic chairs, stiflingly hot in the sunshine, but weathertight enough.

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Valley and shelter

The far side had two tracks and no signpost, but I took the right hand one by the fence both because it looked more likely and because if it was wrong I was heading for the Bowes path or a trig point, whereas too far left was heading into emptiness. But it was the right one, getting more definite as it went on and leading over the hill towards Baldersdale and the first sight of the first reservoirs.

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Up until now I'd really seen nobody, but around the reservoir was busy with people just out for a sensible kind of walk. At about 3pm it was finally lunchtime for me, and I found a spot near the bridge for a rest.

On the far side the path climbs through Hannah's Meadow, but at this time of year it was just another grassy field, although there was some information about it in a little barn, and I made the detour up to the upper dam, where a toilet was marked, which was a waste of time as it was closed down.

Another hill led to another valley, with the reservoirs only just in view at first.

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The reservoir here had a lovely bridge, quite a scenic spot with the green fields behind.

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Grassholme Bridge

Beyond the reservoir I was back into fields, aiming from ruined barn to ruined barn as the waymarkers weren't always very clear. The next farm at Wythes Hill earned my possibly eternal gratitude by having not just an honesty tuckshop but an outdoor tap for the use of walkers - there had been nowhere to buy an extra drink on this stretch, and I was running low.

Another field or two brought me into upland grazing and then open moor again, with Middleton now in sight down below me.

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Middleton

Over to my right as I descended towards the town was the little clump of trees on Kirkcarrion, site of the all Northern Pies ghost stories.

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Kirkcarrion

It still seemed quite a long way down, but I came down to the road, and then to the bridge where the Pennine Way went off to the left and I headed on into the town - this was my only night in a B+B, a nice top floor room with sloping walls, conveniently across the road from the Teesdale hotel - it fed me very well, although I was surprised by how quiet it was compared to the crowds at Hawes and Tan Hill.


Middleton in Teesdale to Dufton
Monday 22nd April


This was going to be quite a different day, a change from hills and moors to rivers and waterfalls, and I was looking forward to it, although my feet were sore, not just on the inside from pounding on hard tracks, but on the outside from getting wet with bog and rubbed away all day.

Middleton was a nice little town, with useful things like a cash machine and a co-op, and I could stock up on lunch food, and finally remember that it was Easter and buy a pack of mini eggs - I was only sorry that I hadn't had more time for pottering round and waiting for the little information centre to open, but I had a long way to go.

From the bridge the first couple of miles led along parallel to the river without often coming close to it, through green fields, but beyond that the path and the river came together, as they would stay for quite a while.

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Between the fields and the river

Beyond the first little bridge near Bowlees the Tees changed quite suddenly from a broad gentle lowland river to a peat-brown upland thing running fast over stones - the first of of the waterfalls, at Low Force, wasn't much further on again.

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Low Force

This was a busy section, probably popular at any time, but especially on a sunny bank holiday, and the paths were good. The path below High Force on the other side of the river was even busier, but it was quite dramatic enough from above, with a view right down into the pool at the base.

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High Force

The next landmark along the river was a bit incongruous, great quarry buildings around the corner, just when you think you're heading into emptiness.

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Quarry buildings

I was beginning to leave the crowds behind now, though - the path wanders along through what looked at first like gorse but turned out to be juniper on a surprising scale, and then begins to climb away from the river bank.

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Steps and juniper

The path crosses the hillside and comes back down to the farm at Cronkley, then crosses the river, leaving the Tees for a little while to follow Harwood Beck. The turn for the hostel at Langdon Beck is along here - at one point I'd thought of pushing right through to the hostel the day before, and I was quite glad I hadn't, although you just divide up the day differently and get on with it.

Past a house which seemed to be empty on the promontory between the two rivers, and then cross-country from another farm to come back to the Tees at Widdy Bank, where houses are left behind and the valley deepens.

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Bend at Widdy Bank

My guidebook said that the valley here looked like a Scottish glen, but it reminded me far more of Langstrath - it wasn't quite right for any part of Scotland I could think of. It was lovely, but it had stopped being a gentle riverside wander - every so often the path would simply vanish under rocks, and you had to pick your way slowly over until it turned into a path again.

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Rocky path

Other parts were duckboarded, so it wasn't as wild as it looked, but there was a nice feeling of emptiness all the same.

I kept expecting to come round a corner and see the path up to the reservoir, which I was holding out for as a lunch stop, but instead I came eventually came round a corner and met a dead end of waterfall, impressive but baffling.

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Cauldron Snout

There was no way to go except up, but there was no particular sign of a route, just odd traces that someone else might have gone the same way - I really hadn't expected to go rockclimbing.

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Rock climbing

I suppose it was really no harder than the route up Pen-y-Ghent, just a bit more exposed and utterly bafflingly loud, so if that can be part of the route this could be.

Near the top I found a spot to eat my lunch, and then I really was up by the reservoir, although I didn't make a detour to the dam, thinking I would see it from above later.

The route here is the access track to Birkwith, possibly the highest farmhouse in England, although in the good weather it looked quite green and peaceful among the brown moors.

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Birkwith

I was supposed to leave the track quite soon, but instead the track led on and on up the hill - I couldn't have gone any another way, but it was disorientating, as all the descriptions in the guidebook were wrong. Further on I was walking parallel to danger signs, with the long bulk of Mickle Fell somewhere beyond, and then finally turning off onto the kind of path I expected to come down to Maize Beck.

I'm not quite sure where the old stepping stone route is, and the water was low here again so that I could have crossed the burn half a dozen times, but I waited for the surprisingly tall bridge.

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Maize Beck bridge

I was looking out now for another landmark - the guidebook said that from this side you come on it unexpectedly, although it's not entirely unheralded, as the notch which is the top of Scordale is visible for a while before. And of course I was expecting it, and feeling that it was taking a long time to arrive, so that when I finally did reach High Cup my reaction was not so much awe as worry about how on earth I could get down from here by dinner time.

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High Cup

But it is stunning, and although I didn't want to get too close in the wind I did find that if I just kept on following the path round it was all fine - although I was glad I didn't have to try to follow the path down into it.

I wasn't really all that far from Dufton either, and beyond the rim I was soon heading definitely downhill, and meeting the first person I'd seen since Cow Green, out for a run with her dog.

Further down I was into fields and tracks and the little hills around the edges - the north Pennines are limestone and gritstone on top of the same rocks which make up the Lake District, and where the lower rocks show through you get hills very like the ones further west.

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Un-Pennine hills

The only problem now was that my feet were so tender that I could hardly put them down on the stony track - I hobbled down the grassy edges wherever I could to finally come out on to the road.

Great disappointment was to follow - it was somewhere between half seven and eight, and the guidebook said the pub served food until much later, only it was doing nothing of the kind. However the girl in the hostel came to my rescue, making me an evening meal although it was well after the set time, and so I didn't move far that night, drinking a beer in the hostel and eventually limping up to bed.


Dufton to Alston
Tuesday 23rd April


Another long day, and the iconic climb over the hills - a long toil up against a steady east wind to the string of summits, and a long walk down to Garrigill and along a new river to Alston.

Full report: Up on the roof of England
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nigheandonn
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