Windy Gyle

There are six Nuttalls in the Cheviots and so far I had ticked five of them.  The solitary summit remaining stood as the most obvious outlier on my map of northern England, marked up with hills already bagged and yet to be ticked.  I thought little of my many other mountain objectives; the time had come for a border raid!

Close monitoring of the MWIS forecasts for the Southern Uplands paid off as the forthcoming Sunday was predicted to have no rain, probable clear summits, temperatures just above freezing but and winds topping out at just 20 mph.

Leaving home at 6:30am to arrive at Wedder Leap car park at 10:30am, I ate a butty for breakfast and got myself ready before starting the walk, icy in places, along the upper Coquet valley to Barrowburn.

A clear tractor track was easy to follow but these lower slopes had not frozen and the muddy ruts needed a bit of care to pick the most solid footsteps.  The views back to Coquetdale were lit by the morning light and the valley’s solitude was laid out for quiet appreciation.

Coquetdale

After the initial climb the angle eased and the track curved to the west.  A couple of farmers on their quad bikes with terrier escort moved a herd of cows off the track and I continued towards higher ground.  Glancing eastwards I spotted a solitary walker descending The Middle; this area has some good terrain for the solo walker.

I passed the memorial stone at Murder Cleugh and joined a track that had another set of snowy footsteps, the first I had seen on my route today, before I turned uphill and the footprints headed towards Uswayford.

approaching Little Ward Law

looking towards Thirl Moor

The views of snowy hillsides in Northumberland National Park towards the south-west opened up as I passed Ward Law.  I made a quick off-track ascent of Little Ward Law and then dropped down to begin walking up the rise towards Scotchman’s Ford.  Soon after crossing the trickling burn, whose flow was diminished because of the obviously frozen surrounding ground, I joined the track leading to Windy Gyle from the Trows valley.  This track, although obscured with snow, was well-trodden and this appeared to be the most common way up from the English side of the border.

crossing the Pennine Way

Windy Gyle trig point & summit cairn

Although not the highest point on the England-Scotland border, Windy Gyle is the highest border summit with any significant prominence, perhaps obviously demonstrated by it being the only border Nuttall.

sun pillar of Windy Gyle

I went through the gate in the border fence and walked the last few yards to the large cairn.  The cairn holds the embedded triangulation pillar and also a shelter which is on the northern side.  The views were expansive across the rolling Cheviots and The Cheviot itself dominated the north-east skyline.  The winter cloak of snow added to the reward of reaching the top and I was happy that I had completed the Cheviot Nuttalls, the most distant of the English spine.

The Cheviot & Hedgehope Hill

The Cheviot

After wandering around the cairn and taking an obligatory summit selfie, I shouldered my rucksack and started making my way down.  At the turn for Scotchman’s Ford I carried straight on following the broad ridge of very easy walking down towards Trows.  Near the end of the ridge I spotted an animal a hundred or more yards in front of me trotting towards the Wardlaw woods.  Despite the distance I was fairly sure that it was a fox.

At Trows I picked up the tarmac road and strolled on quite quickly, reaching the road where Rowhope Burn joins the River Coquet and then made good time on the final mile.  I only met one other person on the whole walk and saw perhaps half a dozen more in the distance.  The Cheviots offer solitude, if that is what you want.

Northern Solitude

For the second time in under a month, an early start marked the beginning of a day walking over remote Cheviot summits.  At Wedder Leap car park I laced my boots after eating a breakfast butty and set off, crossing the River Coquet to start what was to be another long day in the hills.

At a junction in the track I decided to follow the track uphill.  I soon worked out that this was a navigational error that would take me to the summit of Kyloe Shin but at the point of realisation I reckoned that it would be easier to continue than to reverse and descend.  The summit turned out to be a worthwhile leg-stretcher and descending the grassy north-west ridge was a pleasure.

towards Uswayford

The route ascended the felled forestry slopes of Middle Hill, skirting around the top before descending to the col below The Middle and then taking the traverse path on its east slope.  Uswayford could be seen clearly at the head of the valley over a kilometre away.  The well maintained track allowed quick progress and as I at the farmstead I crossed the bridge and skirted the farmyard boundary, walking around the enclosed solar panels while looking for any clue as to where the way ahead went.  Although the ground was boggy I decided to roughly follow the fenceline and was soon on a vague path.

Bloodybush Edge trig point

I crossed the stile at the point 506 col and followed the fence on its southern side to the summit of Bloodybush Edge.  I knew that there was a triangulation pillar at the top but as I crested the convex slope I could hardly see it.  Because it was so white it successfully blended in to the sky in the background; it was probably the whitest trig point that I’ve ever seen.  From here the broad dome of Cushat Law dominated the view ahead with the fenceline meandering the three kilometres to its top.

Cushat Law from Bloodybush Edge

Cushat Law summit towards Hedgehope Hill

Views from Cushat Law’s summit cairn towards the higher Cheviot summits had improved.  I had a quick conversation with a man who had followed me up with his dog, before he set off towards the Breamish valley.  My route off was to retrace the three kilometres to Bloodybush Edge and then back down to Uswayford.

I had been calculating the time that would be needed to tick Windy Gyle and I worked out that chasing the tick would add two hours to the walk; probably more as my variation of Naismith’s rule starts to fail if the day’s total time exceeds 8 hours.  I thought it almost certain that heading for the third summit would result in me finishing the walk in the dark – the extensive cloud cover would exacerbate the lack of light – and the resultant tiredness being a hindrance to my own safety.  And thus the decision to head straight back to the car was made.

Windy Gyle from Bloodybush Edge

Although at some point in the future I would have to make the long drive again to tick off Windy Gyle, I consoled myself with the thought that combining the trip with a return home via some northern Pennine summits would offset the petrol expense.  That plan will have to wait until BST arrives in 2022 with the lengthening days.

As I walked over The Middle it was clear that Windy Gyle summit would have been reached at or after sunset which justified the decision not to climb it.  I got back to the car 15 minutes before sunset, having been going for over eight and a half hours.  Considering the looming long drive home in the dark I was happy with the day’s route choice decisions.

But the long day did make me feel good about the stopping off at Burger King on the M6 for my tea!

Beyond Hadrian

 A 2 hour drive from home in west Lancashire can get me to the start of a lot of walks in north Wales, the Peak District, Yorkshire Dales, Pennines and the Lake District but this day-walk needed a bit more dedication.  An early start and a 4 hour drive got me to the Harthope Valley at 10am to start my walk in the Cheviots.

Hedgehope Hill from Hawsen Burn

Housey Crags

Although the highest summits were in cloud Housey Crags could be clearly seen.  Good ground underfoot soon had me at the base of the crag with a wide choice of routes to the top with anything from some challenging scrambling to walking.

The Cheviot from Housey Crags

The views were hazy but the valley and its surrounding hills felt big and open with broad grass and heather slopes reaching to a big sky.  The walk over Long Crags was easy and the foreshortened view of Hedgehope Hill suggested more of a challenge that it turned out to be.  Obviously not overly trodden, a narrow path had been worn and was easy to follow to the final convex slope where I emerged out of the midge-populated still air into a light breeze.  The summit is topped by an impressive cairn supporting a triangulation pillar; it turned out to be the most impressive summit of the day.

Hedgehop Hill summit

Looking out towards the North Sea I spied a lower cloudbase and possibly some rain although inland was clearer.  I turned towards Comb Fell encountering some hags down to the col and even more of them at the col, albeit mostly dry, before roughly handrailing the fence to a bend which marked the summit.  Mist had moved up Harthope Valley and ascended its north-facing slopes, spilling over the col I had just walked up from.  I hadn’t yet escaped the midges as I started across the wetter plateau which had some Armco beams places over occasional areas of exposed peat which made progress easier.

The route to Cairn Hill is not intuitive; that is, not direct!  The summit is to the right but the fenceline bends to the left and I was going to take a direct route but after looking at the OS Explorer map I decided to keep to the right of the fence and use it as a handrail feature to take me directly to the summit.  The col between Comb Fell and Cairn Hill had some deep groughs that would provide good sport in wetter conditions.  It was here that I started to meet other walkers for the first time today as they descended from The Cheviot to take the valley route down and past Langleeford.

Cairn Hill summit

On the walk from Cairn Hill to its west top, also known as Hangingstone Hill, I could easily see the group of three Nuttalls to the south and west with Windy Gyle being the most obvious.  Hangingstone Hill’s summit is an insignificant piece of heather in the middle of nowhere, 60 or 70 yards from the signpost at the junction of the three paths of the Pennine Way.  Auchope Cairn was an easy stroll giving teasing views of the more rugged north side of The Cheviot including the rockier features of the Hen Hole and Braydon Crag.  The summit cairns stood sentinel over the view to Scotland and I retraced my steps, stopping for a quick chat a young couple mountain-biking to Kirk Yetholm.

Auchope Cairn summit

Hangingstone Hill signpost

he route to the top of The Cheviot was on a good flagged path which led into cloud which turned out to be drizzle.  I put on my waterproofs at the summit and climbed the slippery concrete plinth to reach the trig point to claim the tick.

The Cheviot summit

The way down followed a reasonable but rough stony track over pink granite to Scald Hill and then past some well-made and numbered (1 to 10, or was it 11?) shooting butts.  This is the standard way up to Northumberland’s county top but I would definitely recommend the horseshoe route that I’d walked.

The day on the hill had been long – just over 8 and a half hours – and I still had to get my boots off and load the car before starting the drive home.  I knew beforehand that it would be a long day; the round trip turned out to be 410 miles of driving 18 hours from leaving home to returning.