Great Knoutberry Hill

'Solo trek to Dales and rail'

Date: 13 Mar 2012                                        Start time: 10:42

Start point: Lay-by on Coal Road at end of a bridleway - SD779880

Walker: Mark Illingworth

Distance: 7.29miles                                      Time: 3:32:52

Route: Head SSW through gate onto bridleway. Follow clear path to apparently dis-used animal pen with an old pre-CRoW Act 2000 signage showing a permitted footpath to top of the hill alongside wire fence. Follow faint track E, with fence L, over and around peat bog areas. Take sligh detour R at Pikes Edge to see large cairns, then head E again to rejoin fence line. At trig point, cross over two stiles (L then R) to summit bench/shelter, then back to trig point. Follow drystone wall SW with wall on your L. Follow this downhill all the way to clear bridleway which crosses your path after a wall stile. Head WSW to bridleway cross-roads. Head trough gate and continue ahead downhill down Arten Gill towards viaduct. After admiring viaduct, head back up bridleway towards cross-roads. Turn L to follow bridleway N then W then N again back to lay-by through a number of gates.

Weather: Dry but cloudy, making vivibility not great. Misty from 400-600m, no long ranging views above 600m so poor visibility from fell top. Light westerly winds, not cold but nippy higher up when in clouds.

Notes: I liked the drive up Dentdale to the station and beyond. I didn't stop in the village but I would like to go another time, there looked to be a couple of ale houses of interest. The church looked to be the largest building in the village, larger than you would expect for somewhere this size. The most interesting feature of this picturesque Dales village was it's cobbled streets - I don't think I had ever driven over cobbles before. I liked it, there was the feel of something traditional and long-standing, unchanged by our modern ways. The station is also noteworthy as the highest mainline station in England. I couldn't get much of a look, there was some building wok being carried out on the station house.

Of the walk itself, the first notable point is the part of the route that reminds you just how recently we were given the benefit of Access Land with the CRoW Act in 2000 - A sign from the mid-90s showed a permissive footpath tot he hill top, but the land it sits on is Access Land, so free for me to roam at my pleasure as almost all the high ground is in the Dales National Park. This access meant I could freely explore the cairns at Pikes Edge on route to the summit. The main cairn nearest to the path was in good order, they all looked large and well formed, though some had withstood the weathering better than others. The thing is, I couldn't see the point of them. They ran largely north-south, but not in an arrow straight line. They didn't mark a route over the hill, this path went west from here and main bridleways were far away. They werne't to warn of any notably dangerous terrain, they were a safe distance from the worst peat bogs and no cliffs or gullies are nearby. Walls and a fence marked farmland boundaries. I really don't know what they are there for. Even he stone didn't look right - it was darker and browner in appearnace tha the limestones traditional to the area.

Back to the peat bogs, they added a certain distance to my trip over the summit. At times on the ascent the best option was to hop over the fence to the less boggy side. The hill top was quite flat so felt vast and open, which is perfect conditions for a bog on an English hilltop. Hollows and ravines formed from the bogs were a common sight. The boggiest patch might well have been saved for surrounding the trig point. It wasn't an OS trig point, it was short and squat and looked more of a well than a cairn, and to get to it meant using wood and stones as a stepping stone pathment.

Apparently three dales and all three of the Yorkshire Three Peaks are visible from this top on a clear day, but this wasn't a clear day, I dind't even get to see the Widdale Tarns not far below.

Birds normally scare me, but the two types I experienced on this day weren't too bad. A family of some sort of song bird looked quite pretty even as they swooped around me looking for a place to settle. The other type were a bird of prey by the looks of them. What I liked about these was the noise they made sounded like a short-wave radio or a walkie-talkie changing frequency. It was a new bird sound on me.

Possibly the star attraction of the walk, given the lack of a view, was the Artengill Viaduct at the bottom of the well restored Arten Gill bridleway. It really is a classic feat of Victorian engineering, just as the whole Settle-Carlisle line seems to be. 11 arches, 117ft high, 220yards long, with a decent waterfall coming through underneath it too, this is a fine example of nature and man combining to make something more impressive than either would have had they this piece of land to themselves.

I only encountered two other people on this walk - two Yorkshire farmers who I couldn't understand at all when they spoke. They were rebuilding a drystone wall to stop their sheep getting to the stream away form their field. If farmers were as friendly and comprehensible as your common walker I would have stopped and spoken with them about this almost lost art of simple construction, but I thought better of it. Still, it was good to see this craftsmanship going on in the Dales, where walls appeared increasingly replaced by fences. It wouldn't look as Postman Pat if it wasn't littered with drystone wall lined lanes - which reminds me, I saw a postman doing his daily round on the cobbled streets of Dent. He had a red van, but no black and white cat that I could see. If I lived in the Dales I would call my postman Pat whatever their name actually was.