Today’s post is 1300 words, 22 photos, a 6 minute read. Enjoy!

Hi everyone,

This week I’ll take you on a walk up and down the Great Shunner Fell, a change in elevation of 1706 feet going up and 1404 feet going down. It was the hardest, yet one of the most memorable sections of the Herriot Way.

If you missed the first nine stories in this series about our time in Scotland and England, click here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

The Great Shunner Fell

After waking, I looked out the window of the Butt House at the flock of sheep grazing in the pasture. I see the red telephone box at the intersection of the road that passes through Keld. The war memorial is about 50 feet beyond the phone booth. The sky was partly cloudy with bits of sun shining through the fluffy clouds. It looks to be a nice start to the day, the day that we would meet our biggest challenge of the Herriot Way Walk, the Great Shunner Fell.

After our delicious breakfast, we picked up our sack lunches, stowed our backpacks and poles in Chris’s car. We decided on the way to skip the nearly two mile walk from Hawes to Hardraw. On Day 1, we walked down the hill from Hardraw into Hawes, no need to backtrack, especially up hill!

Chris dropped us off at the Green Dragon Pub in Hardraw. (I promise, I’ll share more about the Green Dragon in next week’s post. It’s a fun story). We would join the Pennine Way a few yards down the road from the Green Dragon that would take us up the Great Shunner Fell. Note the fingerpost in the photo below. As an aside, the Pennine Way is a 268 mile trail that begins near Manchester in central England and ends just across the Scottish Border. During our time walking the Herriot Way, we met a couple of walkers that were doing the Pennine in one-week segments rather than a through walk.

Before setting off, we pulled out the Walking The Herriot Way guidebook and turned to page 65 for directions. We figured we were at about 650 feet elevation, the 4.5 mile climb to the summit would take us to 2349 feet.

The Great Shunner Fell is the third highest mountain in the Yorkshire Dales. The word fell is derived from an Old Norse word that means mountain. The local folks that we met during our time in Swaledale seemed to hold a lot of respect for this rugged spot in the landscape. We took a good look at the Old Hearne Coal Road to begin our journey. As we climbed we could see the evidence of abandoned coal digs near the trail.

It didn’t take long before the road narrowed into a rocky sheep trail.

While the climb seemed gradual, it was steep enough for us to stop from time to time to catch our breath and allow our heart rates to settle back to normal. The dang Apple Watch was keeping track! Periodic rest periods and water breaks did allow me a few minutes to take a few photos of the scenery.

Below is a photo of the market town of Hawes that is situated on the River Ure.

Everyday in the Yorkshire Dales, I’m struck by the beauty of the patchwork of fields and pastures all outlined with stone walls.

The higher we climbed, the grasses became courser and shorter plus the breeze became a light wind. During our many rest stops, we saw locations where stone was quarried or peat cut or coal mined.

One of the annoying features of the Great Shunner Fell is that it has false summits. As we began our walk, I pointed to what I thought was the summit, it didn’t seem so far away. When we arrived at that point, we saw another summit, that wasn’t it either. There would be at least two more false summits before we reached the real thing.

Meet these two English women; Carol, Judy and their friendly dog. We had a lovely chat with them and would see them periodically along the trail as they or we stopped to rest. We would also meet up with them near the end of the walk, I won’t spoil the conclusion to this story.

Sometimes the footpath was over fairly firm sod while at other times flat stones served as stepping stones through the spongy grasses. There were places where the ground was quite soft, step on it and water would squish around the soul of your shoes. Waterproof boots were necessary. Probing the ground with hiking poles also guaranteed a safe passage.

When the grumbling from her parents became too annoying or they took too many rest stops, The Youngest walked ahead for some peace and quiet. Note the false summit ahead!

As the morning progressed, we enjoyed the scenery while dark clouds began rolling in. We wondered if we’d be caught the rain. We were optimistic, thinking it would pass by us.

Once in a while, we’d come to an area of open water. Like I mentioned before, the higher we climbed, the soggier the ground became. I don’t know if sheep or wildlife could use this as a watering hole, the ground was so soft.

The closer to the summit we got, the thicker the clouds became.

We finally reached the summit at about 12:30 PM or so, it took us nearly 4 hours. Note part of the stone cross-shaped windbreak with benches on each side of the cross. Carol and Judy were having their lunch when we arrived, they soon headed down towards the village Thwaite. We found a bench that was out of the wind and snarfed down our lunch all the while watching the rain clouds gather with our fingers crossed we wouldn’t get wet.

Nearby was a cairn to mark the summit, I pick up a very small stone to add to the monument.

We were about to don our backpacks and pick up our poles for the descent when raindrops began falling, followed by a thick fog. We quickly pulled on our rain pants and jackets hoping to keep mostly dry for the three-mile walk to Thwaite. For me, the walk down was harder than the ascent because of my knee problems. I often fell behind my Traveling Partner and The Youngest as I was careful to prevent further injury. There were times when I lost sight of them, it helped that The Youngest had a head lamp to periodically check to make sure I was still plodding along. The rain wasn’t hard, sometimes a sprinkle, sometimes just a steady, cold drizzle, sometimes just a mist. This is the only photo that I took on the descent down the Great Shunner Fell, I think a sheep sorting barn.

When we walked into the small village of Thwaite, population about 100, it was still drizzling. We saw that the Kearton Tearoom was open. In we went, shedding our wet jackets, rain pants, poles, and backpacks by the front door. We were greeted by Carol and Judy who said to us: “We told the hostess that three Americans would be here soon.” After a chat with Carol and Judy, we found a table and ordered a pot of tea for the ladies, a coffee for me, and a piece of lemon cake to share. We all look bedraggled to some degree.

We noticed the place was for sale. For a moment we thought what lovely place to live and work. Then we realized, we didn’t have a clue how to run a tea room, a beer garden, six suites, and two apartments in a foreign country. It sounded like too much work. Oh, well one can dream. (We just found out that it’s now been sold.).

After warming ourselves, it was still dripping outside. We decided to call Jacqui at the Butt House for a ride rather than walking the last three miles. As soon as we were back, we took turns in the warm bath. It was still drizzling when we went to dinner with a couple from Australia and three Brits. And more walking talk.

Join me next week for the final day of our walk on the Herriot Way.

Until then, happy travels!

Tom

PS: Click here for a link to the post about my book “Farm Boy.” Contact me if you are interested in purchasing a copy. Thanks to all have plunked down your hard earned dollars and read the book. TM