Dufton to Garrigill Walking the Pennine Way 01/06/24

 Dufton to Garrigill

Walking the Pennine Way

 01/06/24

The starting point at Dufton, a pleasant little Cumbrian village, reached by a series of single track roads gave a beautiful panoramic view of the task ahead. The photo reveals the huge bulk of Cross Fell with Little Dunn Fell to the right. But don’t be fooled there are 2 more fells to climb before you get to Little Dunn Fell, Knock Fell and Great Dunn Fell with its radar station. Still we know the task ahead is difficult but you have to get high to get the views as my brother Peter often says.

A very pleasant, though somewhat strongly smelling of nature, paved path through a green bower eases us into the walk. The well fenced, managed, path takes us past some of the biggest brown cows we have ever seen.

They were contently chewing the cud. I love the way cows will watch you, all the way, as you pass them. I often wonder if we humans are seen by them as an entertaining side show to their main life task of eating as much grass as they can find. I’m sure farmers will know all their individual characters.

Dufton Pike to the right as we start to climb up the steep wooded lane is a wonderful green hill and looks like it would be a challenge to surmount, but not on todays agenda.

 Our first real long view back comes at the top of the lane at Coatsike. The Lake District Hills just visible in the hazy air. It’s warm and not too windy, perfect walking conditions. We are both covered in insect repellent and sun block as we know what 8 hours on the hills can throw at you. Better to be prepared than sore.

We pass a very pleasant babbling brook where sparkling peaty water tumbles down the fell.

Looking back down the long slog of a Hurning Lane from Halsteads (not the Hadrian’s Wall one) there are the 2 figures of a couple of lets say ‘late middle aged’ men who we passed earlier. We actual stumbled upon them mid comfort break, but, for guys, that’s what walls are for, isn’t it. They are doing the Pennine Way, starting at Edale, in one go and have been at it for 2 weeks. Good progress I would say especially with a full load on your back.

 

The Lake District Hills were quite visible in the distance and though there was plenty of cloud we seemed to be in permanent sunshine. The typical stone walls in view are impressively made and often the stones used have a reddish, mauve tint, most fetching and in keeping with the vernacular buildings of the area.

We starting to enter the high country when we came to the rock strewn Swindale Beck. The long view back down the hill towards Dufton which now looked a fair distance away.

Looking up the Beck, our path climbing the steep left hand slope, towards the tops of the fells but we were still only about half way up to the first fell summit. It did look a little daunting but as Wainwright said ‘just put one foot in front of other’ and eventually you will reach the top.

 

After a long trudge over the beautiful but boggy in places green sward of aptly named Green Fell we reached the first major milestone, Knock Old Man. Not the peak but marked with a stone roughly Pyramid shaped edifice. It was another few hundred yards uphill until we reached the peak of Knock Fell marked by a cairn.

To be fair I am still not sure if it was Green Fell or Knock Fell but it was one of them. This was about a 4 to 5 mile hike continually climbing from Dufton to the top, sometimes steeply sloped, sometimes not so steep. It was difficult and in my aging limbs the constant angle of climb was playing havoc with my hips. They were begging for flat land or downhill just to vary the motion. Bearing in mind we had walked from Hanging Shaw to Dufton the previous day I was impressed with the energy levels we were both maintaining.

The next hill to climb was Great Dun fell with its radar station. Boggy ground and slippy paving gave us another problem to overcome. We were at the watershed of the hills with the Tees Valley system to the right and the Eden Valley system to the left. We were getting long views in both directions.

The massive Cow Green Reservoir was just visible in the distance.

The slopes of Great Dunn Fell are littered with mine workings the largest being the great trench at Dunfell Hush. Walking along the edge of this when physically very tired was interesting if a little hair-raising. It’s a lot steeper and higher than this picture suggests.

We skirted around the dome to the north side of the summit passing Great Dunn Fell with no problems. We did speculate as to the function of the dome but could only come up with radar which is blatantly stating the obvious. It had been quite a steep climb up the fell and my energy levels were starting to falter.

Next Little Dunn Fell. A nice downhill section relieving the aching hips followed by another tough little ascent. Much of the paved path being waterlogged and flooded forced our eyes down to avoid tripping and slipping. Still we had plenty of stops to take in the views on the upward slopes.

 

 

 

 

At last, the big one, the iconic, Cross Fell. Another stiff ascent much higher than the last 2 with a couple of false peaks marked with structures and an indistinct path.

Finally we reached the summit as this view from the trig point shows. The structure is basically a complex of walls and shelves to give you relief from the elements and somewhere to sit or rather perch to eat the top of the walk sandwich. Its always better to eat at the top of the hill rather than on the way up, easier on the stomach. The elements today were benign and really quite pleasantly warm.

The Solway Firth was visible in the distance though this photo shows more the extent of the area of this high summit. The Lake District and the Eden Valley clearly visible looking to the west but the hills of the Tees Valley looked a long way off to the east, our destination.

This was the half way point of the walk and our limbs stiffened while we chatted with a fellow walker who caustically called the various day walkers on the hills, tourists. A little harsh as only the fittest and maybe foolish would be tempted to climb the long ascent to this summit.

We chatted about the Pennine Way and he asked us the pertinent question of how we would approach the Byrness to Kirk Yetholm stage and we did not have an answer. Its 23 miles which due to bog hopping etc is probably nearer to 25 miles and is not an easy trail so needs to be done in 2 sections but there are no roads so how do we do this? We can do it in 1 day but fatigue would not only be extreme but potentially dangerous so we will probably have to camp which means carrying much more weight. One for another day to ponder.

Coming off the summit was a bit of a wrench and our limbs had stiffened up so needed a little time to loosen. At least it was all downhill. We met a couple coming on to the summit as we were descending. They were doing the walk the opposite way and we had met them the previous day doing the Dufton to Hanging Shaw walk the opposite way too. It was cool to meet again. They did however warn us that the going though mostly downhill was hard on the feet. This was very true the long lane off the summit being rough hard standing, painful after a few miles and we had 8 to cover.

A word of warning they were using the OS app which we also use as it is the best way of not getting lost. They however had stopped looking at it and were waiting for a sign telling them to turn off to the summit. There is no sign at this junction. This oversight as they continued along the lane for a fair way gave them an extra climb to regain the summit once they realised their error. So if you have the app use it and save your legs.

A view looking back up to the summit of Cross Fell from the seemingly never ending hard-core path. The path takes and age to get anywhere, it is windy and long but not steep. It goes up and down and seems to follow contours for miles until eventually it turns and dips down into Garrigill.

It is a pain of a walk but the views are very pleasant.

The welcome sight of Garrigill could not come too soon as my energy levels were nearing empty. A final stop to finish off the coffee and eat a trail bun in view of the village over a stone wall was great but the fuel tank remained just above empty or even running on fumes.

As we walked into Garrigill we were reminiscing about our time living in Grove Street and our friends Trevor Philips and David Allsop who were enemies during bunnywood time but teammates and playmates the rest of the time. I was particularly amused by Peter remembering walking around the Oakwell area of Barnsley singing Beatle songs with the boys but you know I do remember it ….so clearly. Bunnywood was wood we collected for the Guy Fawkes bunfires. They had a different bunfire to ours so would try to steal our wood whilst we would try to steal theirs. Just so you know in Barnsley a bonfire is pronounced bunfire. The reminiscing continued covering much of the period we lived there but that’s for another blog.

It was great to reach the end in such high spirits. All we had left to do was Peter to drive the 50 minutes back over the hill to my car in the carpark at Dufton then for both of us to drive for 2 hours south to our South Yorkshire homes.

It’s always an amazing experience spending time with my older brother walking the Pennine Way and I love it.

Dufton to Garrigill
Distance	17.63	miles
Duration	07:52	hours
Avg. Speed	2.24	mph
Total Ascent	3200	ft
Steps	44,177