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NorthumberlandWalk Details: The Walk: |
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We could have just walked up to the Cheviot summit and back again, thus bagging the county top and marilyn without fuss. However, after the miserable tops yesterday we were spoiling for a decent walk and therefore decided to do the Nuttall’s round of four hills, rather than a simple up-and-down-again attack on The Cheviot itself (being prefaced by “The” seemed to imply we should treat this hill with a bit of respect!). Unfortunately, all the accounts of The Cheviot on the web wrote of waist deep mire and not being able to get anywhere near the trig point. We were hoping that the ongoing drought would alleviate this situation for us, and were in high spirits as we drove up the A697 from our B&B (Chestnut House in Morpeth). Part of these high spirits were probably due to the enormous fry-up supplied by our host – one of the largest I’ve had at any B&B anywhere (he tried to get us to eat more, too!). Our spirits were maintained by the drive-in to our chosen parking place, near Langleeford. First we crossed a steep-sided rough ford near North Middleton, which Jim secretly loved despite his protests over potential damage to his car. Next was the lovely drive on a narrow, winding but open road up the Harthope Burn valley, with the green hummocks of the Cheviots rising slowly on each side. Finally, and rather surprising, the parking area itself was the most beautiful car park I’ve seen – short yet verdant grass underfoot, bounded by a tree-lined babbling brook and with hills all around just begging to be climbed.
It has to be said, this path is a bit of a featureless trudge up the hill, although we were entranced with the particularly diminutive variety of heather growing here. The most interesting thing we saw was a dead adder with its guts spilled across the path – whether it had been attacked by a raptor or had eaten something that disagreed with it was unclear. Apart from this, the only real features were scattered freestanding fence panels. Jim eventually realised that they were hides for grouse shooting – I wanted to know how they managed to make single panels stay up in what was at times obviously a pretty blowy location. We passed a couple of girls resting on a stile, who seemed to be the only other people attempting The Chev today (the other people in the car park must have been visiting another hill – possibly the attractively pointy Hedgehope Hill on the other side of the valley), and continued on up to the top of Scald Hill. Whilst barely more than a bump on the side of The Cheviot, Scald Hill provides grand views out to the North Sea, and the tiny col on the far side provided a slight breather from the unremitting ascent. The col also featured another stile, where, half way up the Chev, we took a breather. We could also see the path continuing steeply up the Cheviot, although we’d clearly now broken the back of the hill – the remaining height didn’t loom at us too much. When the two girls caught us up again they looked rather aggrieved that we’d got this stile first! Beyond the col the path bore right and headed upwards again – this part of the ascent was much steeper than the initial part up Scald Hill. Having got some momentum up I pushed ahead whilst Jim stopped to tape up some loose stitching inside his boot. Generally the going was on a clear path up a grassy slope, with a wall to the left, but at times we had to pick our way over small patches of loose rocks. The views opened out behind us as we climbed, but at times the wizzle blew in again, drastically cutting visibility. Eventually the path levelled out as it reached the summit plateau of The Chev. We were pleased to find that someone had been hard at work laying stone flags across the peat bogs (at times they’d obviously had to lay several stones on top of one another as the path gradually sank into the mud). Not that it would have been a problem today – the bog was dried out to the point of being eroded by the wind in places. It was therefore with clean boots and light hearts that we marched quickly across the plateau to the trig point, meeting the two girls again on the way across (they’d already been to the summit).
Here, just a mile or so from the Scottish border, we were delighted to find that someone had planted a large English flag. It was flapping loose of its pole, so we took a brief moment to tie it up again. Even more amusing was the wonderfully contradictory notice saying “Do not read this notice”. Near the trig point was the only wet bit of bog we saw in our entire traverse of The Cheviot. The edge of the wide flat plateau blocked out any chance of a decent view, but by ascending the plinth supporting the trig point (presumably to stop it sinking) we were able to see a little further – still nothing spectacular though. Jim went one further and ascended the trig itself – a brave move in the ferocious and icy wind – before we settled down for some trail food in the lee of the plinth. We didn’t realise it at the time, but we should have been celebrating – with this summit we’d completed two-thirds of our county tops list. We headed rapidly onwards down the stone-flagged path, feeling very grateful towards (but not even slightly envious of) the good folk who built it. We were now on a spur of the Pennine Way, although after walking for hundreds of miles I’m surprised people would want to add on the extra couple of miles up The Cheviot and back (“because it’s there”?!). After a short distance there was an almost imperceptible rise up to Cairn Hill, drummed out of the Nuttall’s list for not bearing any resemblance to a hill. It no longer lived up to the first part of its name either – the “Scotsman’s Cairn” shown on the OS maps has been converted into an impressive wind shelter. Top details (2):
The OS map showed us heading on into pathless, featureless open access moorland. However, it turned out there was a fence not shown on the map. We followed the right-hand side of the fence, and soon picked up a faint path. This soon switched to the left-hand side of the fence and led across a series of peat goughs. These were at times deep, but thankfully the drought had left even these mantraps nearly bone dry. This part of the walk would be pretty awful in a wet spell though. It was a long, dispiriting slog up the gently sloping Comb Fell, with the peat goughs gradually fading out as we approached the top. Comb Fell is a long, wide featureless moorland ridge, and we were pretty bored of still having the same fence to our right. There was no real way of telling what was the highest point, but the highest GPS reading we got was as follows:
Top details (3): Comb Fell was, frankly, a miserable place and we didn’t linger. We hurried down into the col to the north-east, where we met a friendly couple approaching the Cheviot from the south, the first people we’d met on these quiet hills since the Cheviot, some hours earlier. Theirs was a much longer approach, yet they were carrying full-size packs and merely using it as a “training route”. The sight of these sprightly folk made us feel old and tired in comparison, so we stopped to have lunch with our legs hanging over the edge of yet another (dried out) peat gough. Suitably refuelled, we set of to tackle the final hill of the walk. The steep slopes of Hedgehope Hill (which my wife had been referring to as “Hedgehog Hill” all week) loomed ominously ahead. They turned out not to be nearly as steep as they looked, and showed a remarkably swift change in vegetation – the heather, bilberry and peat bog was suddenly replaced by relatively verdant grass.
Top details (4): Our heads were nearly ripped from our necks as we stood up, but within seconds of starting the descent on a now very clear path we were in calm, almost sultry air. It was a steep grassy descent, quite tough on the knees. Half way down we met a chap coming the other way, carrying no gear and looking as if he’d come straight out from work for an afternoon wander – he was certainly not even out of breath as he strolled easily up the steep hill, hands in pockets. We later saw him getting in his car a long way back down the valley, and worked out that his “stroll” to Hedgehope Hill was actually a good 10 kilometres!
The OS map showed the path back to the car park as coming before Housey Crags; it was actually just after, and a short walk downhill to a bridge over Harthope Burn led us back to the car. I’d thoroughly enjoyed the walk; although never spectacular, it had always been pleasant; the low numbers of other walkers had made it feel surprisingly remote. It had felt surprisingly easy, given that it had over a kilometre of ascent, but I’m willing to bet that it would have been far harder (especially over Comb Fell) if we’d had more rain recently. Definitely a walk for the summer, this one!
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Refreshing drizzle was blowing across the car
park. In the west country misty drizzle is known as mizzle – should
wind-borne drizzle be called wizzle? I sincerely hope not! The wizzle
was in no way dampening the camaraderie of the other hikers togging themselves
up ready to walk. Indeed, when a plastic bag from a nearby car made a
bid for freedom we all set off after it like a pack of hounds. We all
know, however, that this camaraderie in hill-bottom car parks is merely
an unconscious attempt to put off the forthcoming ascent, and it wasn’t
long before Jim and I were marching off down the road. Although Jim pulled
his waterproofs on, I elected not to, bearing in mind the forthcoming
climb – the wizzle stopped soon after we started walking down the
road. We soon turned off the road up a rough track of moderate gradient.
Jim got hot and took off his mac, at which point the wizzle promptly started
again. He put his mac back on and it stopped. I told him he’d better
keep it on for the rest of the walk to ensure fair weather!
Top details (1):
Here we left the Pennine Way spur and headed
southwards on a path that led steeply down a grassy slope to the col at
the head of the Harthope Burn valley. If necessary we could have continued
on the footpath back down the valley, but the wizzle seemed to have cleared
and we were enjoying ourselves. We therefore pushed on with our high-level
horseshoe.
As we climbed away from the col, the
wind increased. After a surprisingly easy grassy slope, we reached the
top of Hedgehope Hill to find ourselves in a gale. It was so windy that
even the trig point had decided to hide inside the large and comfortable
wind shelter. As we took a quick break, we invented a game involving throwing
small stones up out of the shelter, and seeing whose blew the furthest.
It took a while for Jim to work out that I was repeatedly winning only
because I was secretly using small bits of wood rather than stones [NOTE:
do not try this game at home – in the absence of strong winds the
pebbles may drop on your own head and smart a little!]. The views from
the smallish summit of Hedgehope Hill were spectacular, certainly by far
the best of the walk – we could see a long stretch of the fertile
Northumbrian coastal strip laid out as if on a map, and trace the entire
route we’d just walked around the head of the valley.
Ahead we could see what we were hoping would
be the most rewarding part of the walk; the rocky knolls of Long Crags
and Housey Crags. We’d seen these at the start of the walk, and
wondered if they would offer the opportunity for a bit of scrambling.
The rocks of Long Crags were barely a step up from the path, although
it was certainly a challenge to stand upright on them in the wind. Housey
Crags was rather more prominent, and we took an easy scrambly route up
the southern flank (and then easily walked back down the more gentle eastern
side). The small cliff on the western side probably qualifies as a climb.
The wind was even stronger here, and at the top I had to wrap my arms
around the rocks for fear of being blown off.