Nine Standards Rigg in December Splendour

[The English Alpinist]

Two of the 9 supremely impressive cairns on Nine Standards Rigg.

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I am one for setting tough ambitions, but also one who likes to enjoy things. This can be a difficult balance to get. A few years ago I set myself the challenge of doing all the Wainwrights in one winter (5 months), and to my eternal satisfaction I managed it, and I think I enjoyed the experience more often than not! When we reach a certain stage of life, I think we begin to reflect on what we want to achieve with the rest of it, and I have now decided I would like to do 'all' the other mountains of Britain. Let's call that everything over 2,000 feet. That is a lot of mountains. It will take me 15 to 20 years, based on how often I reckon I can travel, which means I'll be at it until the age of 70 (with luck), give or take. I started in August of this year with forays into Scotland, and already I've been feeling a touch daunted by the travelling, never mind the actual walking. This kind of defeats the object, so this month I gave myself the luxury of two days close to home, starting with this walk from Kirkby Stephen in Cumbria, in the most gentle winter conditions you could ask for.

Difficult to go wrong at this stage.

Nine Standards Rigg.

Looking back on the 'Nine Standards'.

The actual summit, 2,172 feet (662m).

I'd never been walking in this region, despite it being so close to my home in Lancaster, as like most others I think I have tended to gravitate to the Lakes or the 'famous' parts of Yorskshire and the Pennines such as the 3 peaks. This is a mistake, as the area offers much in terms of quiet wilderness-walking as well as miscellaneous and cultural features of interest. I soon sampled one of the latter on ascending the very tourist-friendly 'Nine Standards Rigg', so called because of the 9 giant and shapely cairns atop it [see footnotes]. As the day wore on, and the next day, I found this - cairn-building - to be a kind of ancestral hobby around here. Many of them make the Lake's Hallin Fell cairn, which had impressed me at the time, look very ordinary (and rather too 'neat', if I'm to attempt sculptural criticism). Well, after the summit of Nine Standards, the sense of leisure-walking was over, and for the next stage I encountered the familiar penalty that comes with the needs of bagging: arduous, pathless moorland tramping, as I created my own route down to the B6270 (runs between Kirkby Stephen and Keld) to link to my next two Hewitts.

Re-ascending from the B6270, looking back on Nine Standards, heading for High Seat.

Nature's peat hag sculpturing.

High Seat, 2,326 feet (709m); archeoogical evidence it once had a trig point, or at least something.

The stupendous cairn of 'Gregory Chapel'.

Can't remember if this was the actual summit of Little Fell, 2,188 feet (667m), or the south summit.

The next phase of the walk saw me as a spectacularly solitary figure on the 2,000 foot heights of Mallerstang Edge, the start of a 4-mile moorland stretch in golden sun and winter breezes. This, it seems to me, is one of the benefits of 'bagging': it brings you to places and terrain you wouldn't otherwise visit, nor most other people. Shortly after the Hewitt summit of High Seat, the map spoke of a thing which had my curiosity: 'Gregory Chapel'. Religious, missionary connotations? Or just an affectionate name for another fine pile of stones? [footnotes]. It has a little stone shelter too, which had not been put there for walkers or even pilgrims, as I romanced, but all-important sheep. A kilometre further along, there was another cairn called 'Lady's Pillar', which my researches reveal has a pleasingly definite history to it [footnotes]. Who would have thought so much background interest would have sprung from what promised to be a lot of unpicturesque (in a Lakeland sense) moorland? Well, whilst the ground itself may not be pretty, the sheer openness and naturalness of the views, especially under such azure skies, more than make up for it.

The setting sun behind, I believe, Whernside.

The final descent, as dusk falls..

Clear night sky, moonlight, planets, barren moorland, what more can you ask for?

I arrived at my last Hewitt just as the sun began to set, and so indistinct is it that even the name is open to debate: 'Little Fell' (Yorkshire Dales as opposed to Pennines, mind), but according to the map could also be regarded as 'Little Fell Brae', which marks the northern part of it where the true summit is, or 'Lunds Fell' which appears to possess the southern summit at a metre lower. Just to be sure, I did both, being only half a kilometre apart. As always, however, there can be intellectual nourishment to be had when noting that the River Ure begins in the dip exactly between the two. I do not recall seeing it at the time, though, and was more keen to get down off the moorland before dark and onto the big friendly Pennine Bridleway which runs through the valley at the bottom, and something which throws up yet more cutural items of interest [footnotes]. I came down at a point called Hell Gill Bridge, which seemed far from hellish but comprised a quaint old stone bridge and a poetically babbling brook, but which might be pretty violent in a flood I guess. Further on, on this now moonlit stroll (Venus, Jupiter and Saturn also sat strikingly above the dusky hills), I was taken aback by the silhoette of a mystery monument [footnotes!]. It was a heck of a long, footsore plod back to Kirkby Stephen along the road, but I could enjoy kidding myself that this quiet valley as well as the heavens themselves belonged to me for this evening.

I later discovered this is 'Water Cut', a scupture by Mary Bourne [footnote].

This walk is followed by 'From Boar to Baugh in December Splendour'
https://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=110623

A winter walk under a full moon in a quiet Yorkshire Dales valley is something I recommend.

'Nine Standards Rigg': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine_Standards_Rigg

'Gregory Chapel': why so called? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregory_Chapel

'Lady's Pillar': https://myyorkshiredales.co.uk/hills/hugh-seat/

A bit of geography: https://myyorkshiredales.co.uk/hills/little-fell/

The bridleway through the valley: https://www.nationaltrail.co.uk/en_GB/trails/pennine-bridleway/

'Water Cut' by Mary Bourne, is one of the series of ten site-specific, carved stone sculptures which also function as seats, situated on public paths along the length of the The River Eden from its source at Mallerstang to where it joins the sea at Rockcliffe, just north of Carlisle. The project involved ten different artists and was commissioned to mark the new Millennium. 'Water Cut' is sited alongside the Pennine Bridleway near The Thrang, Mallerstang.
https://www.iancylkowski.com/blog/2020/5/29/mallerstang-yorkshire-dales-spring