Rising above the River Wharfe at one of its most idyllic stretches is a glorious heather moor, complemented by a multitude of prominent gritstone outcrops. This is Simon’s Seat; a moor of distinctly independent character to the majority of the Yorkshire Dales National Park. The Dales is predominantly renowned as limestone country, yet as the … Read more
Pendle Hill is an outlier, but not an outcast, exerting a commanding presence far beyond its modest altitude. The hill forms part of the Forest of Bowland National Landscape, yet is entirely separate; a discrete, solitary whaleback distanced from the interconnected upland core of the mother fells. To the world at large, Pendle Hill is … Read more
Imagine a statuesque range of voluptuous hump-backed hills, cloaked in green velvet and rippled by an amplitude of homogeneous ridges sweeping gracefully down to a petticoat of bucolic pastures. Move in closer and a contrast emerges, for the ridges are separated by deeply riven gills, spouting lively streams that give vigour to an otherwise tranquil … Read more
The subject of this Worthy is the noble curving escarpment that dramatically marks the north-western edge of the North York Moors. The extent of the full escarpment is around fifteen miles, although it is the western half that is the most distinctively enjoyable, comprising an undulation of four linked hills – Carlton Moor, Cringle Moor, … Read more
Ingleborough was the nearest ‘proper’ mountain to my childhood home and the first over 2,000 feet that I ever climbed. I was twelve years of age and took the bus to Ingleton one very wet winter Sunday. I didn’t see a thing all day and my primitive waterproofs were wholly inadequate, yet the sodden experience … Read more
High Cup Nick is a landscape feature, not a hill, however it occurs on a high escarpment where surrounding summits rise only marginally higher and therefore it feels like a hill. Moreover, it’s a unique and compelling upland cynosure and, in my book, that makes it worth travelling to see. Despite the rating of 64 … Read more