Fairfield harbours a secret. Unobserved by the majority who stroll its favoured southerly horseshoe circuit is a forbidding north face cast in seemingly perpetual shadow. Mountains that exhibit such profound contrasts are something of a Lakeland speciality; a prime example evinced by Fairfield’s illustrious neighbour Helvellyn. However, what distinguishes Fairfield from the generality is that … Read more
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
The Mourne Mountains comprise a compact range of immense character; uncompromising granite peaks jostling for attention. Crucially, in the Worthy stakes a select number are artistically distinguished by imposing tors, revealing their resistant bones of bare bedrock in spectacular fashion. These summit tors are a remarkable feature of the Mournes, and the most prodigious collection … 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
“Cosdon’s immensity is apparent rather than real; for nature has built her, rounded her and ordered her uprising with such cunning architecture that the hill’s dimensions, in their perfection of proportion and balance, imply an amplitude that they do not possess.”— Eden Phillpotts As the admirable observation by the local writer Eden Phillpotts suggests, Cosdon … Read more
The greatest concentration of celebrated gritstone edges in the Peak District lies along the eastern fringe of the national park, where bold escarpments rise to confine the moorland stretching west from Sheffield. Stanage, Froggatt and Curbar edges are among the most revered names in British climbing. Far to the southwest, in the Staffordshire Moorlands, the … Read more
Stob Bàn cuts a fine figure. Both on the map and on the ground, its soaring conical form, capped by a shattered crust of white quartzite, captures attention and ignites aspiration. For those embarking on the magnificent traverse of the complete Mamore range, Stob Bàn is of little more consequence than comprising the second Munro … Read more
Criffel is no mountain, although at 1867ft (569m) it is not that far off attaining official status. However, precise altitude is irrelevant, because it forms the highest ground for many miles around, with no serious competition coming for twenty-five miles, looking either due north to the Lowther Hills, or southeast, across the Solway Firth, to … Read more
Pick up a map of the Malvern Hills and they appear insignificant; even the Ordnance Survey sheet at 1:50k displays the topography as cluttered and too condensed for significant detail. However, if you jump into the car and drive along the M5 Motorway, the genially serrated ridgeline completely dominates the scene. Geologically, the rocks are … Read more
The Northwest Fells are arguably the most complex and integrated concentration of wonderfulness in the Lake District, a cluster of summits that combine to create a fellwalkers’ utopia, making the task of singling out Worthies particularly onerous. The natural divide of Whinlatter Pass does concentrate the quality to the south, and many would declare those … Read more