The North of the Spine

The day turned out to be the hottest of the year so far. 

So my decision to tick some northern Pennine outlying summits was probably a good one as three shorter walks allowed for some respite during the day

Thack Moor was the first singleton of the day.  An early start allowed me time to get lost on the lanes leading to Renwick but I was soon parked up on the main street and was heading uphill before 9’o’clock.  A good track followed by a good path led inexorably to the summit and posed no navigational problems and the trig point marked what most would assume to be the high point.  However, when Thack Moor was being surveyed and awarded Nuttall status, the actual summit was found to be 1 centimetre higher on the other side of the wall.  I carefully climbed over to a grassy sward with no obvious highest point but I used GPS to get to the “top” – tick!

Thack Moor trig point

the Dodds ridge with Great Gable behind

The views to the Lake District were hazy but High Street, Helvellyn, the northern Dodds, Blencathra, Skiddaw and Binsey could be easily identified.  There was a distant summit poking above the Dodds which I thought could have been Grisedale Pike but it turned out to be Great Gable.  I used my monocular to spot the summit of Grey Nag to the east, a Nuttall that I had walked up a couple of months earlier.  Cold Fell to the north – a target for later today – looked as if it had some significant summit furniture.

The descent back to the car was quick and I then drove up the quiet roads to Hartside summit before enjoying the descent to Alston along with many bikers – both the motor and pedal versions.  At Nenthead I turned uphill to the road summit and started my stroll to Flinty Fell.

The summit of Flinty Fell was previously determined to be on an old spoil heap which seems to be an obvious place for it to be.  But more recent surveys have found that it is in the middle of a significant plateau where there is no obvious highest point.  According to my GPS I got to within zero metres of the 10-figure grid reference of the summit but that point had no particular significance to the eye.

It’s got to be said that if it wasn’t on a list then Flinty Fell would be seldom, if at all, visited.  And I suspect that it gets few visitors now!  My “ascent” followed a significant dry spell and it was fine underfoot but after more typical British weather, the area would be horribly boggy. Despite the lack of positive attributes, it does afford good views of Cross Fell and the Dun Fells although you can see these just as clearly from the summit of the fell road!

The drive back down to Alston and then on towards Brampton was a treat in the Sunday afternoon sunshine.  I parked at the RSPB reserve at Geltsdale and walked down the track to the old quarrymen’s cottages at Howgill before attempting to follow the track marked on the Landranger map that has long become overgrown with bracken and is now all but impossible to follow.  I should have turned off at the more obvious path that looked as if it cut the corner.

The track marked above the zig-zags was a lot clearer to follow but the sun and the heat made for slow progress on my third walk of the day; time for some chocolate and jelly babies to consume some calories before heading once again uphill.

The track narrowed to a path, boggy in a few places and encroached upon by tall grasses and bracken until open moorland was reached.  A snake slithered off the path and into the undergrowth – I was too slow to identify the species but I suspect it wasn’t an adder.  Once past the fence the path led to a grouse butt and took a line to the left but soon petered out.  Then it was heather bashing to the fenceline which could then be handrailed to the summit.

Cold Fell summit

Accompanying the trig point was a substantial shelter and an impressive cairn.  Although hazy, the views to the Lake District were clear enough to identify the same summits that I saw earlier in the day from Thack Moor.  Looking at the photos later at home, Great Gable was as prominent and Scafell Pike and Lingmell straddled Clough Head.  As I was so close to the border the view over the Solway to Criffel was uninterrupted.

northern Dodds, Scafell Pike, Lingmell, Great Gable, Blencathra

I followed a path downhill that led directly to the grouse butt that I saw on my way up.  I rejoined my original track just below the butt and turned around to see that the path I had just descended could not be seen and it was obvious that the path I took on the way up was misleading.  I noted this for the future but it’s unlikely that I’ll ever be back here again.

The descent was very quick and I was glad to get back to the car, take off my boots and start the drive home.  Overall it was a long day which was made that much more enjoyable by doing the walks in the sun and after the recent spell of dry weather.

From Hartside

The summit of Hartside used to have a popular café but following a devastating fire in 2018 demolition was the result.  Just beyond is an abandoned quarry and it was from there that I started up the partly squelchy Hartside Height to the top; a minor summit at the start of a ridge leading to three Nuttalls.

Black Fell from Hartside Height

I carried on uphill on the west of the wall to be in the lee of the wind and could clearly see Thack Moor.  I was leaving this as the last summit of the day as it is such an outlier from the main ridge and depending on how I felt later in the day, I could leave it for another walk safe in the knowledge that my three target summits will have been ticked.  From the summit trig point of Black Fell the day’s route lay clearly in sight before me but the wall had been replaced by a fence and as there was now no protection from the wind I decided that the east side looked more favourable to walk on; I soon met some less than ideal ground and crossed back over.

Tom Smith's Stone is at a junction of 3 fences but to get there required the negotiation of a significant area of peat hags and groughs.  There must not have a been a significant amount of rainfall recently as most of the exposed peat was firm and without its usual suction that would otherwise try its best to keep hold of your boots.  Because of the clear visibility and my knowledge of the fence handrailing to the stone, I felt confident that taking a meandering route to make progress would not force me off course in the long run.  There were many micro routefinding decisions to be made but the challenge soon passed and I arrived at the waypoint.

At the stone I could clearly see Thack Moor and the corner-cutting route to its summit.  It would avoid the poor ground I had just covered but it wasn’t clear whether the ground would be problematic or not; I delayed my decision to when I returned here on the way back.

Tom Smith's Stone - "C"

The stone is about waist height with four sides and a tetrahedral top.  Each face has a letter carved into it:

A          Alston               on the side facing Black Fell;

C          Croglin              on the side face facing Croglin Fell;

K          Knarsdale         on the side opposite A and facing nowhere in particular;

W         Whitley             on the side facing Tom Smith's Stone Top.

From the stone to the summit of the prosaically named Tom Smith’s Stone Top is an easy incline with a few hags and groughs to overcome but they are not as bad as those navigated earlier.  The highpoint is not obvious but a small cairn supporting an old fencepost marks a point as valid as any other.  Grey Nag is the obvious summit ahead, just follow the fence and avoid a few more hags and groughs.

Grey Nag was the most impressive summit of the day with a stature not usually found in the Pennines but worthy of some of the finest Lakeland fells.  It is a rocky top with its trig pillar cemented into a plinth with a large domed cairn sitting astride the sturdy wall.

Grey Nag summit

Grey Nag summit

I descended to Tom Smith’s Stone and considered that time would be a major factor in heading for Thack Moor as it is quite a big out and back adding quite a few miles to the walk.  If I left it I could come back and walk up from Renwick, or I could tick it on the same day as Fiend's Fell and Melmerby Fell as I had to come back again to Hartside for these two anyway.  I had a good look at the 1:25,000 Explorer map and decided to leave it for another day.

For a lot of the walk I followed a faint quadbike track, leading to trays of medicated grit marked by short white sticks.  There were plenty of grouse about as they flew away from my oncoming footsteps, some leaving their escape to the closest of approaches.  Tussocks were a feature on the moor and I christened them “Boris heads” because they are domed, unkempt, unruly, dishevelled, blond straw lumps but they were useful because they marked firmer ground.

Walking back over Black Fell the distant heights became a bit clearer although the haze persisted.  Cross Fell with its snow patches dominated the view to the south.  In the Lake District, Blencathra, Skiddaw and the back o' Skiddaw could be made out as well as Ullswater and the Dodds range.  The visual challenge was Criffel but I could just make it out over the Solway.

Cross Fell from below Black Fell summit

a distant Lake District

Once again the Pennines proved their worth for solitude; I saw no other walkers all day.

A New English Mountain

While browsing on Twitter this morning I came across a tweet posted by Grough announcing a “new” mountain had been found in England – Thack Moor.

Of course, the summit in question has always been there and its height has been constant – no tectonic upheaval has caused the mountain to rise – but recent surveys have determined that its summit height exceeded the 2000 feet required for “mountain” status.  And the margin by which it exceeded the benchmark height ?  2 centimetres !

By all accounts Thack Moor is one of a number of otherwise unremarkable northern Pennine moorland summits with its appeal being the quiet afforded by its relatively remote location – just north of the Hartside Pass summit on the A686.

The article on Grough’s website has significance for those hillwalkers who bag either HEWITTS or Nuttalls as Thack Moor has now been added to both of these hill lists.

There are usually grumblings within the bagging community when a mountain is promoted with some debate about whether those who have previously completed a list need to visit the “new” summit.  I take the view that if somebody has completed a list as it stood on the date of completion, they can retain “completer” status.  But I’d head out and tick it if I hadn’t already done so !

As many hill lists are specifically defined by summit height and prominence, I welcome these surveys as I am always keen to see accurate data – it’s a characteristic of my job !  Some say that the lists should be left alone – a view taken by many Munro enthusiasts – but I disagree.  If a definition is based only on measurable criteria then the classification will always be subject to change resulting from increasingly accurate surveys.

The Nuttalls is a list that I’m slowly working my way through so Thack Moor has now been added to my “To Do” list – I’m looking forward to visiting an area of the country that I’ve not been to before.

G & J Surveys (a team whose members are Graham Jackson, John Barnard and Myrddyn Phillips) carried out the survey with the results being confirmed by the Ordnance Survey.  This is the team whose previous surveys have resulted in the “demotion” of a Munro or two over the past couple of years.  I’m sure they’ll provide a few more reclassifications in months and years to come !