Great Mountain Days in the Pennines. Terry Marsh
– liquids are vital, especially in hot conditions, and in winter a stainless steel thermos of hot drink goes down a treat. Cold liquids can be carried in water bottles or in pliable water containers that fit into your rucksack and have a plastic suction tube that leads over the shoulder and allows water to be drunk as required.
Spare clothing – there is no need to duplicate everything you wear or would normally carry, but some extras permanently embedded in your rucksack will prove beneficial – T-shirt, sweater, scarf, spare socks (to double as gloves, if necessary) and spare laces.
Other bits and pieces – strong string (can double as emergency laces), small towel (for drying post-paddling feet during summer months), notebook, pencil, pocket knife and a thermal blanket or survival bag for emergencies. Hopefully you will never use it, but half a roll of toilet tissue in a sealable plastic bag has eased many an embarrassing moment.
Gordale Scar – the route lies up the brown-coloured boulder in the centre (Walk 26)
The route up to Hag Dyke, and Great Whernside beyond (Walk 28)
NORTH PENNINES
Looking up to the summit of Cross Fell (Walk 3)
The mountain uplands that rise between Hadrian’s Wall and the Yorkshire Dales spread themselves across too broad a landscape to have acquired any true generic name. Most walkers know of Cross Fell, Cauldron Snout, High Cup Nick, High Force and similar honey pots, but the region is almost 50km (30 miles) wide in places, and much the same from its most northerly summit, Cold Fell, to the Stainmore Gap, which runs either side of Brough – 2500 square kilometres (900 square miles) of wild, windy and beautiful moorland where the Pennines rise to their greatest height.
Within this comparatively unknown area lies the largest concentration of hills in England outside the Lake District, and while it does not boast the status of a national park (although there are many who think it should), a sizeable chunk has been designated as the North Pennines Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Here, in these bleak moorland heights, it has been suggested that the valleys rather than the hills form the attraction. Certainly, no walker keen on broadening his or her horizons should turn aside from a skirmish or two with the hills of the northern moors; there are grand days out to be had up here.
Some parts (AONB notwithstanding) are affected by access controls: Mickle Fell, for example, forms part of the Warcop military training area, and vast areas of the region are actively managed grouse moors with all the attendant obligations such conditions impose on walkers. But there is ample room for everyone, and anyone venturing there will find the northern moors too big to ignore, too wild to take for granted.
For this book, the North Pennines provide a useful counterbalance to the Dark Peak of Derbyshire, but are considerably less frequented by walkers and enjoy much greater altitude, in Cross Fell reaching to 893m (almost 3000ft). It may be tempting to dismiss these moors as unappetising fare enriched occasionally by the taste of something more spicy. In the right mood, on the right day, the North Pennines will be seen in their true colours: a place of ever-changing hues and with a subtlety of flavour that will please all but the most jaded of palates.
WALK ONE
Thack Moor and Black Fell
| Start point | Renwick NY596436 |
| Distance | 18km (11¼ miles) |
| Height gain | 525m (1725ft) |
| Grade | strenuous |
| Time | 6–7hrs |
| Maps | Ordnance Survey OL31 (North Pennines: Teesdale and Weardale) |
| Getting there | Roadside parking at Townhead in Renwick, near the church |
| After-walk refreshment | Pubs in Kirkoswald |
The soft, moulded grassy fells that gather to the north of the A686 trans-Pennine Penrith to Alston road are only rarely visited by walkers. Solitude, peace and tranquillity are therefore found here in abundance, along pathways seldom trodden and below massive skies. The Hartside Pass is well known and popular with bikers in particular, but the East Fellside village of Renwick knows no such fame – a small, close-knit community going quietly about its business.
Bothy cottage just below Hartside summit, looking across to Thack Moor
The Route
The ascent to Thack Moor, also known as Renwick Fell, is very direct, barely wavering from a straight line once the open fell is gained. Start off along the road for Outhwaite, a steep little pull. The gradient soon eases, and when the road swings to the right, leave it by going forward onto a stony track. Where the ascending track divides (NY604441), keep left, and continue along a wall-enclosed track. About 100m after the left-hand wall ends, go forward through a metal gate onto Access Land and continue beside a fence.
Setting off up the track from Renwick
When the accompanying fence veers away and is left behind, maintain the same direction, briefly and steeply uphill onto the grassy top of Thack Moor, climbing through reeds for a while before moving onto the sloping summit plateau, the highest point of which is marked by a trig pillar at a meeting point between a wall and fence. The view embraces most of the northern and eastern Lakeland fells that lie to the west, while northwards the dome of Criffel beyond the Solway Firth is visible. But it is the nearer display of soft-shaped hills running to Cold Fell and, even further, to the Cheviot that really commands attention.
On the summit of Watch Hill
Now turn south-east alongside the wall. When the wall changes direction, it’s time to leave it; but take a moment to inspect the nearby sheepfold, which proves to be a useful shelter, if needed, since there is no shelter on Thack Moor. Cross tussock moorland to a stile in a fence (NY616459), beyond which a broad quad-bike track is joined, heading for Watch Hill.
There are two summits on Watch Hill, the first occupied by a pile of stones, a currick, and the other by a ladder-stile spanning a wall, with a 602m spot height just beyond. The former is slightly higher, at 604m.
Cross the ladder-stile, which has a small gate with a formidable spring. Over the stile, now head in a south-easterly direction, keeping to the high ground, devoid of useful tracks, but not unduly difficult to cross. In the distance, a ruined sheepfold and bothy cottage stand out and serve as a useful target. Nearby, another ladder-stile crosses a trans-ridge wall (NY636457), now with the whale-back of Black Fell looming in the distance. Once over the stile, keep beside the wall to a gate, where the wall ends and a fence takes over. Pass through the gate and follow a quad-bike track beside the fence, and ever onwards, since it leads all the way to the top of Black Fell, where the Pennine watershed is joined. It is a sobering thought, but Black Fell actually marks only the half-way point of the walk; the rest, however, is almost entirely downhill.
Retrospective view to Black Fell, Watch Hill and distant Thack Moor
The onward route now follows the watershed down to the Hartside Pass, variously accompanied by a fence or a wall and climbing onto Hartside Height, where a through-stile takes the route over the wall, and then down beside a fence to a kissing-gate just above Hartside summit, with