Great Dun Fell and Cross Fell

Thursday 16th September 2004

After spending most of this holiday in the Yorkshire Dales I had now moved further north into the vast Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty called the North Pennines, which lies between the Yorkshire Dales and the Northumberland National Parks. It is the most remote area of England with open heather moors and peatlands covering a vast area where few people live. There is nowhere else in England as remote and in 2004 I went for a walk across this desolate terrain in not the best weather up to the highest point in the Pennines, and the highest point in England outside of the Lake District. I was staying in the Langdon Beck Youth Hostel in Teesdale and to get to the start of my walk I had to drive through the bleak upland terrain over the pass and into South Tynedale to the pretty little village of Garrigill where I parked beside the delightful village green. I returned to this village in 2009 while walking the Pennine Way, but the weather must have been really bad as most of the pictures that I took that day were of the River South Tyne north of the village of Garrigill near the end of my long twenty mile trek across the Pennines.

Instead of following the river downstream, on this walk I followed it upstream along the course of the South Tyne Trail on paths that were rather muddy until eventually I reached the safety of a good track on a continuation of the road through the valley. This track continued to take me south and I soon reached an obelisk that has been set up to mark the source of the River South Tyne while the track continues south over the pass and with hardly any drop comes into the valley of the young River Tees. The weather was not great on this walk with generally low, grey clouds all day although I don’t have any recollection of rain even though there probably had been. Crossing the River Tees I took a track that passes the site of Moor House field research station to head deep into the uncharted wilderness of the North Pennines far from any other person. Eventually the track ended and I was left to fend for myself on a dwindling path with little sense of where I was going except to follow the stream.

There is a clear bridlepath marked on maps, but on the ground things were a little more uncertain, and yet I kept going in the poor weather gradually gaining height until eventually a deep scar in the ground appeared beside me in the mist and following this brought me to a clear path: the Pennine Way. With great relief I followed this path only to be confronted with a terrifying collection of buildings surrounded by a wire fence. This is the radar station that I had seen the previous day from the top of Nine Standards Rigg and now, in much worse weather, they looked scary as they emerged out of the mist. Continuing across the highest hills in the Pennine range I passed over Little Dun Fell and eventually reached the flat top of Cross Fell. I remember having to be very careful with my navigation across this featureless top, but eventually found the tall cairn that marks the summit of the highest hill in the Pennines.

On a good day I’m sure there are extensive views, but I’ve never had much luck on Cross Fell. In 2009, when I took the picture above, I had poor weather, just as I had in 2004, and the only other time I have been in the area, in 2006, the weather was just as bad. After a brief stop at the summit I took a compass bearing and headed off the plateau onto the bridlepath that crosses the fell, but I remember having some uncertainty around the area near Greg’s Hut that I think might have been due to a land slide. Some earth had moved over the path obliterating all trace of the route, but keeping in the same direction I eventually came to the other side where I found the track that runs from Greg’s Hut heading east. This provided me with a sure guide across the bleak, open moor gently descending and heading slowly back towards Garrigill and was a nicely relaxing descent with little requirement for me to think that took me all the other off the vast upland area. Eventually the track became enclosed and took me down to the road a short distance from Garrigill.

This was a mammoth walk across some of the most remote and isolated ground in England. I never saw a single person all day, partly because of the poor weather, but also because of the remoteness of the landscape. This was still quite early in my walking career and yet I had successfully navigated my way across the featureless landscape safely returning to where I had started, and it is days like this that built up my confidence in my ability to walk in featureless terrain such as this, although I wouldn’t go out looking for it. It is scary to think what would have happened if something had gone wrong on this walk as it would have been a long time before help could find me, and even more scary is that when I got back to the youth hostel I discovered that the phone that I’d taken with me, but never turned on, had almost no power. Thank God I didn’t need to call for help. From then I have always ensured my phone is fully charged before going walking.