Great Mountain Days in the Pennines. Terry Marsh
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Название: Great Mountain Days in the Pennines
Автор: Terry Marsh
Издательство: Ingram
Жанр: Спорт, фитнес
isbn: 9781849658911
isbn:
The River Tees below Cronkley Scar
WALK SIX
High Force and Cronkley Fell
| Start point | Bowlees NY908283 |
| Distance | 20.5km (12¾ miles) |
| Height gain | 372m (1220ft) |
| Grade | demanding |
| Time | 6hrs |
| Maps | Ordnance Survey OL31 (North Pennines: Teesdale and Weardale) |
| Getting there | Bowlees picnic area car park |
| After-walk refreshment | Pubs, cafés and restaurants in Middleton-in-Teesdale |
For much of its long journey the Pennine Way is charted across desolate acres, the preserve of experienced walkers. But for a while, as it progresses northwards from Middleton-in-Teesdale, it relaxes its challenge and injects a soft, pastoral interlude of riverside meadows before heading for the highest ground of all on Cross Fell. In this gentler stretch, the River Tees holds sway, just a few miles from its source. In places it meanders smoothly over a wide bed of rock; elsewhere it cascades forcefully with all the might of a major river over rocky downfalls.
The Route
Once a remote corner of the North Riding of Yorkshire and part of the ancient Forest of Teesdale in which deer roamed freely, the area that the walk passes through now lies entirely within the county of Durham. Middleton-in-Teesdale is the largest town hereabouts, formerly a local centre of lead-mining activities.
From a long trail of boulders, it is possible to chart the course of the glacier that fashioned this region more than 10,000 years ago. It swept over gaps from the Eden valley, the Lake District and even the south of Scotland, carrying Shap granite and Borrowdale lava as far as the mouth of the Tees, where an accumulation of granite pinpoints what must have been the terminal moraine of the Tees glacier.
The walk begins from a parking and picnic area at Bowlees. From here take a nearby footbridge and walk through Bowlees to the main road. There, opposite the telephone box, take to a clear path towards woodland flanking the unseen River Tees. Once in the woodland, a clear path leads down to cross the river by Wynch Suspension Bridge. The original Wynch Bridge was built in 1704 for miners, but it collapsed in 1820 and had to be rebuilt 10 years later.
Immediately, the Tees puts on a show in the form of Low Force, a place where the riverbed is wide and punctuated by islands of dolerite. Set against a backdrop of dark woodlands, this is the Tees at its most beautiful.
Climb the steps beyond the bridge and set off beside the Tees. This is a delightful stretch of the Pennine Way, which, at the right time of year, produces a display of plants that has given Teesdale an international reputation among botanists. Globe flower seems to grow everywhere, while among the rocks shrubby and alpine cinquefoil have found root. The most famous of Teesdale’s plants is the spring gentian, making its home here among other rarities, the alpine forget-me-not, bitter milkwort, bog sandwort, bird’s-eye primrose and others.
Why such great plant diversity should appear here seems a puzzle – but the answer lies in the study of geology and early land formations. Teesdale (and parts of Scotland) were grassy islands in a vast forest, fragments of the carpet of tundra that covered Britain after the Ice Age. Later, when the climate improved, these areas were shaded out by trees. Carbon dating of pollen remains in the underlying peat reveals a history going back to the last Ice Age.
Further on, juniper bushes cloak the slopes of Keedholm Scar. Juniper wood was once gathered to make high-quality charcoal, and the berries to flavour London gin.
Looking along the Pennine Way to Cronkley Fell
The river bends sharply just past Keedholm Scar, and suddenly the air is filled with a distant rumbling, the sound of the most famous of Pennine waterfalls, High Force. A slight diversion at metal railings is necessary to get a decent view from this side of the river, but care is needed this close to the edge. The Force is a dramatic plunge over a shelf of dolerite and shale of some 21 metres (70ft), dark brown and peaty, often lost in a fine mist of spray. This is not the highest waterfall in the country by any means, but it is the biggest, and a sight everyone should see.
Upstream, the sound of the falls soon dies away and the Tees resumes a more docile air, rising in restless moorland wandering to its source high on the southern flanks of Cross Fell. The double falls of Bleabeck Force are nothing by comparison, a mere ripple. Ahead the route follows the Pennine Way as it climbs onto the shoulder of Bracken Rigg to an old Pennine Way marker post. From here it descends to a step-stile near a wall corner, beyond which the Way is paved for a while before reaching Cronkley Farm.
Anyone looking for a short-cut can leave the route at the high point of Bracken Rigg and take a path down (left) to pass through a wall. A short distance further on, the later stages of the walk are joined. Turn left towards Skyer Beck, and pick up the route from there.
Now continue north along the Pennine Way to a farm-access bridge, but remain on the south bank of the river following a good path that circumnavigates Cronkley Scar and squeezes through a relatively narrow valley. Continue until almost level with the cliffs of Falcon Clints on the north side of the Tees. At (or just before) NY825281 turn sharply back on yourself to take an ascending bridleway up onto and across Cronkley Fell (a diversion is necessary to reach the trig pillar to the north).
Press on across the fell, with the view down Teesdale improving with every step. The bridleway drops as a broad grassy track through bracken (and heather lower down), but is less pronounced as it parallels Bracken Rigg, passed earlier in the walk. Ford Skyer Beck (stepping stones if needed), and then climb beside a wall. When the wall changes direction, keep climbing a little further to a clear track, now striking eastwards. The track runs on to pass through a line of shooting butts and climbs to pass a large cairn, from which the route crosses rough pasture to a gate and stile in a fence. More wet, rough pasture lies beyond, along with another stream crossing.
Press on to a gate giving onto a gravel vehicle track, and now follow this to a point where it circles round to descend to Holwick Lodge. Here, leave the track by branching right at a couple of stone sheep to a track that descends through a disused quarry area below Holwick Scars. The ongoing track leads out to a surfaced lane. Walk past cottages and turn left at the first road junction. Follow the lane to a cattle grid at the boundary of Strathmore Estate, and just after the grid leave the lane at a signpost for a waymarked route across a flower meadow.
Stone sheep on boundary of Strathmore Estate
The path is waymarked across a number of fields and leads back to Wynch Bridge, from where the outward route is retraced to complete the walk.