A 2021 Summary

2021 carried on in a manner similar to 2020.  Pandemic lockdowns and travel restrictions lessened opportunities for time on the hills with some days out feeling almost subversive.

At the start of 2021 I had 280 summits on my rather eclectic ticklist of ticklists with TRAIL 100 and Nuttall summits making up the bulk of desired tops.  2021 was very quiet from a point of view of additions to my list with no “new” summits being discovered.

Overall I :

            went on             9                                  walks

            walked              94.6                              miles

            ascended          23,192                          feet

            walked for         61 hrs 29 mins            (including rest stops !)

            reached            29                                 individual summits that I hadn’t been to before

            reached            0                                   individual summits that I had been to before

            reached            25                                 summits on my combined ticklist

            reached            1                                   previously unclimbed TRAIL 100 summits

            reached            20                                 previously unclimbed Nuttall summits

            drove                1942                             miles on trips to and from walks

The vast majority of this year’s walking occurred on the Pennines and Cheviots resulting in a significant increase of my expertise of traversing rolling peat moorland .  I completed the English TRAIL 100 summits on The Cheviot.

All of this meant that at the end of 2021, my ongoing ticklist dropped to 255 summits.

The Other Moel Eilio

 After the previous year’s cancellation due to pandemic restrictions the club’s annual post-Christmas day out made a welcome return in 2021.  Seven of us met up at Dolgarrog’s Adventure Parc Snowdonia, best known for its artificial surfing lagoon, and booted up before heading out on to the eastern foothills of the Carneddau. 

Seven of us wound our way up lanes and woodland paths to just above the remote pool on the Afon Porth-llwyd before easier walking led to the Coedty reservoir.  We stopped for lunch at the dam after which we followed the track uphill to the foot of the east ridge of Moel Eilio.  The wind was picking up and we worked our way up the slope into the clag to the summit where we only stayed for a few minutes before heading south-east towards flatter ground which was just tantalisingly in sight.  After reaching the fence line some of the more sensible members of the group decided to ascend a little to avoid following the challenging ground that the fence was leading over; their decision was justified as they found a much easier way down. 

We walked along easy tracks that led to, and under, the Llyn Cowlyd pipeline before gingerly making our way down the very steep roads leading to the Conwy valley, made greasy by the damp and decomposing leaf litter. 

The final mile was along the main road to the Adventure Parc where we unburdened our shoulders of rucksacks and feet of boots before indulging in coffees and hot chocolates in the café for a debrief and discussion of forthcoming post COVID-19 adventures.

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.

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.

Scotland's Southernmost Mountain

A local guidebook of walks on Cairnsmore of Fleet describes the route I was to take with unabashed disdain.  It is dismissed as “a predictable plod”; it “runs the risk of tedium”; “is little more than chore”; is derided as “this most monotonous of routes” and each time it is followed “its tediousness grows no less”.

I can only assume that the old adage that “familiarity breeds contempt” is the reason behind the disparaging descriptions as I found the walk to have a variety of terrain not found in my recent visits to the Pennines and Yorkshire Dales.  It is also a more interesting route than many I have followed in the oft-praised mountains of the Lake District.

Cairnsmore of Fleet is the southernmost Scottish mountain, with a height of 711 metres (2,311 feet) ensuring its classification as both a Graham and a Donald.  From a distance, and specifically the view from the peninsula of The Machars reinforces this, this Galloway mountain is basically a lump.  But on closer inspection it has character.

the way up from the car park

From the car park the Cairnsmore estate track meandered its way slowly uphill.  A signpost indicated the way resulting in a short wooded walk accompanied by the many rhododendron bushes which added their purple brilliance to the verdant pathway.  Another short walk past the farm led to a gate and the first open country of the ascent; across a field to the base of the forest of Bardrochwood Moor.  The path continued to a forest road and a carved granite bench, a memorial to a Rosemary Pilkington.  I chatted with a couple who were on their way down and they told me that their energetic spaniel had been covered in ticks due to its excursions into the forest undergrowth.

in the forest of Bardrochwood Moor

the path through the forest of Bardrochwood Moor

the Rosemary Pilkington memorial bench

The path continued steadily uphill through a wide forest ride and emerged on to open hillside giving a clear view of the way ahead.  The breeze was at my back but no extra layers were needed as long as I kept moving.  Due to my relatively late start I saw quite a few people heading downhill but nobody else was in sight moving uphill.

The path was part pitched and was pleasant underfoot, especially up the zig-zags leading towards the summit plateau.  The gradient eased and the obvious block of a memorial to eight crashed aircraft and their 25 aircrew came into sight above the horizon.  The true summit is ground at the base of a nearby large cairn with the trig pillar just a very short stroll away, situated next to a small walled shelter.

memorial to 25 aircrew

the summit - memorial, cairn, shelter, trig point

summit triangulation pillar 

summit cairn, shelter & trig point

Cairnsmore of Fleet from Cairnsmore

The way down was simply the reverse of the ascent but despite this, the walk reinforced to me that guidebook descriptions are written through a judgemental lens of the author and a rewarding day out can be had on unfamiliar terrain if you keep on open mind and have half-decent weather.

The lesson to be learnt is – tread your own path.

The Mallerstang Triangle

To the east of the Howgill Fells lies a large expanse of moorland which is known by some as the Mallerstang Triangle.  It is made up of the combined high ground of Wild Boar Fell and Swarth Fell which is separated from the larger plateau of Baugh Fell by Holmes Moss.  On the map it looks like a long day and in reality it turned out to be longer.

Heading up to Sand Tarn from Uldale I realised that the ground would normally be wet underfoot but the lack of rain over the past few weeks made the going quite pleasant and was all the better with the good views over to the Howgills with only a slight breeze to lessen the warmth of the sun. 

Sand Tarn

The water level at Sand Tarn was low and after wandering to its north end I discovered that the tarn was actually two bodies of water, separated by a narrow beach that contained a few completely redundant stepping stones.  From the tarn a takes a rising traverse from the beach up to the escarpment.  It looks steep but the view is foreshortened and the path is easy to follow.  The summit of Wild Boar Fell sits back from the edge and a short stroll over very easy ground gains the top.

Two Sand Tarns

Howgill Fells and Sand Tarn

Wild Boar Fell summit

 A rebuilt trig point within a three-quarter circular shelter would appear to be the summit but the true highpoint is an embedded rock about one hundred feet away and I had to use my GPS to find it.  The views, although hazy, were panoramic.  I could see the Yorkshire Three Peaks, Calf Top, the Howgill Fells, the northern Lake District summits and Morecambe Bay.

Wild Boar Fell summit trig & shelter

distant Ingleborough & Whernside

Swarth Fell from the north

Swarth Fell was the next summit and it took a counterintuitive dog-leg route to get there.  The ground was good, passing the tarn at the col and then rising up to some rocky terrain at the top; unusual for a moorland summit.  Walking over to Swarth Fell Pike was easy and the true summit was an unremarkable mound of heather some way short of the cairn.  I turned back and aimed for the descending wall that took me over some boggier ground as I approached Holmes Moss.  This descent would have been a nightmare if there had been any recent rain!

Rawthey Gill Foot is an idyll under blue skies with its attractive pools that might tempt a dip on warmer days.  I crossed the beck on some submerged mossy slabs and after a short rest started to make my way uphill again, looking to climb 200 metres quickly to complete the bulk of the ascent of Baugh Fell and reach the east of the plateau.  I roughly contoured to some cairns below Knoutberry Haw and headed straight for Tarn Rigg Hill.

The high point of Tarn Rigg Hill is another typically vague Pennine summit.  According to my GPS I got to within 1 metre of it where there is a tiny outcrop.  There might be higher ground on the other side of the wall but I’m claiming the tick.

Looking back from whence I came it was immediately apparent that I’d walked a long way from Wild Boar Fell.  And there was still quite a way to go.  The views were extensive and the lowering sun was glinting off the windows of Sedbergh. 

Knoutberry Haw looked higher than Tarn Rigg Hill but it is 2 metres lower.  I followed the walls to that summit, marked by a mossy trig point, and was glad to have ticked the day’s targets.  The clear visibility made it obvious how much more walking I still had left to do.

Knoutberry Haw trig point

I kept on the trackless plateau to West Baugh Fell Tarn which, although quite open, looked to be a reasonable wild camping spot.  From the tarn I carried on northwards and crossed Slate Gill before crossing a fence into a new plantation in the hope of descending to Rawthey Gill.  This wasn’t the best idea as the gill was protected by a vertical cliff!  So I covered the rougher ground until I could descend easily and then followed the attractive river and its falls to the footbridge that led to the private road that took me back to the car.

West Baugh Fell Tarn, Wild Boar Fell & Swarth Fell

My own variation of Naismith’s Rule said that this route would take just over eight hours; in the end in took ten!