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Meldon Hill, Binks Moss, Killhope Law and Middlehope Moor were my last four summits in the North Pennines and I decided to tackle them in fine weather in mid-November, the only catch being that my intended two day trip had to be adjusted to span three days as a high pressure murk was forecast for the middle day resulting in minimal visibility. As this was my final trip to the area, I really wanted to see the views rather than tramping across wet heather moorland attempting to find two sticks with a pair of wellies somewhere on the top of the broad flat top of Binks. No matter that it was three days, the pubs and coffee shops in the villages were a welcome diversion in the extended gloom of the middle day.
This is therefore part one of a description of four out-and-backs on quite remote hills where a circular or combination of tops is certainly possible, but where a simplified approach also has its merits. Given that the total walking time is little more than six hours, it would be possible to do all four when daylight hours are rather longer than they are in November.
Meldon Hill had stood out as the dominant peak to the north when I had walked up Mickle Fell a month earlier. Technically it would be possible to link the two, and possibly Murton Fell in a single round, provided you have your MOD permit and can cope with the most demanding of cross country routes.
I drove up to Cow Green reservoir in the motorhome arriving at about 9am on a mid-November morning to be rewarded with the usual sense of splendid isolation and a fine view of Meldon across the water. I had chosen to head to the dam at the southern end of Cow Green, following the metalled road to Caldron Snout where the Pennine Way on its way to Dufton is briefly encountered. The infant River Tees meets up with Maize Beck at this point and the rapidly flowing water has that grey-blue sharpness at this time of year. The road turns to gravel and passes the farm at Birkdale before reaching a footbridge for the Pennine Way, and a gate, and sign. The sign is important in that it warns that open access to the Meldon moorland is restricted on certain dates in June and July and the local land manager will be on guard during this time. Anyone intending to walk Meldon is therefore advised (by the sign, not me) to visit the Open Access website for the area and check the timings of moorland closure.
This is good advice methinks as the gravel road ascending through the gate leads to a very formal grouse shooting area, a bothy type building and lots of moorland management activity which was continuing apace even in November. That said, it is an attractive walk up onto the hill in clear weather. I chose the ATV track just to the northern end of the bothy where the fast gravel track abruptly ends. The OS map indicates the continuing track, but it is now no more than a wet tread over flattened grass. After about 400 metres I headed left towards the grouse butts around Kettlegrain Sike and then did my best to spot the ATV tracks rising up the hill. The conditions were perfect, so I managed to find a decent tread for most of the way, although I missed the best track which was rising further east. It’s all a bit hit and miss in the slopes immediately below the summit but there is a nice curvy tread which snakes around the high ground to bring you out on to the quite distinctive top of Meldon Hill. At this time of year it’s all milky views across to distant hills although the radar station on Great Dun Fell is a significant landmark. Little Fell and Mickle Fell appear distant meighbours to the south.
At this point I felt a strong temptation to drop down Meldon’s east by north-east flank to take a shorter circular route around the reservoir. Possibly trying to keep to drier ground between Force Burn and Mattergill Sike. But I reckoned the terrain would be difficult and there was a possibility of an early bath in the River Tees, so I decided to head back the same way as I came up and enjoy the views to the south. If you locate the ATV track from the top and stay with it for a good part of the descent, the going is much quicker. It may have been possible to continue on this down to the low ground but I chose to cut across towards the sike and, ultimately, the bothy and meet up with the gravel track.
It took twenty minutes less to come back down and I finished the route in just on three hours, plus ten minutes on the summit, so the going is quite quick for this 10.4 mile route. Great fun, loved it. Probably a bit tough without the visibility though.
Binks Moss
I knew I was going to have problems with parking for my chosen route up Binks. It took about 30 minutes to drive across from Cow Green and on to the B road towards Brough. There is a choice of starting points around Hargill Bridge, one being through a gate and on to the gravel track rising along the eastern side of the beck. The other is a footpath on the opposite side of the road from an entrance to some large livestock sheds. If I had been in the car, I might have been able to risk parking it on the verge for the hour or so it was going to take to get up and down the hill, but the motorhome is a different beast so I nearly had to abandon. I finally found a large space about a kilometre further down the road so I had to start with a ten minute walking return to the footpath sign.
The footpath simply follows the beck up the hill, with the gravel track no more than 200 metres away on the other side of the beck. Initially the path is no more than an indistinct slosh through wet grass before it improves as it heads towards the footbridge where the track and path briefly meet. From this point I headed up the gravel track which winds its dry way northwards, passing various shooting structures and a little wooden bothy. Height is gained quickly before the track turns right, away from the ridge which houses the summit of Binks Moss. There is an ATV track at the foot of the gentle ridge, heading left away from the gravel track. It skirts the ridge, climbing slowly. I stayed on it for too long as just 100 metres from the gravel track there is a post set on the ridge which is probably the best route up and then across the broad and relatively featureless summit. I actually skirted below the ridge until the ATV track began to drop and then stumbled across the heather for ten minutes until the strange sight of two posts adorned with a pair of wellington boots reassuringly appeared. So that’s it really, an expansive brown top with a pair of sticks. Pleasant enough in the late sunshine but not a place to tarry for too long.
For my route down I strictly adhered to a line which would intersect eventually with the sharp bend in the gravel track, occasionally picking up a useful ATV tread, but more often just working hard to avoid the many shallow water courses. It was wet feet time, but only for ten minutes. Then a quick descent to the road which I reached just 75 minutes after commencing the climb.
Just as a reflective footnote, one of the interesting outcomes from tackling the English 2000s is the great unknown of the North Pennines. Having lived in Lancashire for the best part of forty years I thought I knew the northern landscape rather well. Many fell runs in the local hills around Manchester, the Yorkshire Dales and Lakes meant that a lot of the ground, and indeed the hills were reasonably familiar to me. So, the Hewitt tops I tackled first were basically those summits which I already knew and a number of which I had already climbed several times. Then one day I looked at the map of the North Pennines and realised that there was a wonderful network of minor roads and villages to be explored, and within these vast tracts of land there were a whole series of hills with hardly an established footpath to the summits in sight. Well, perhaps not quite! So, time to pause for a day of bad weather and then on to Killhope Law and my final hill in the NP, Middlehope Moor.
