Calf Top

Calf Top is a mountain in Cumbria, but within the Yorkshire Dales National Park. It’s only just a mountain, and only received the classification in 2016 after it was remeasured and found to be a tiny bit over the required 2000 feet, rather than a tiny bit under.

The mountain actually appears to have two names, which may or may not mean slightly different things. Calf Top is either an alternative name for Middleton Fell, or the highest point on it.

‘Middleton’ comes from old English words for ‘middle’ and ‘town’, and is the name of a number of places, including a nearby village, so I presume that’s where that name comes from. As for ‘Calf Top’, I understand the individual words, and the ‘Top’ part makes sense, but I’m not sure where ‘Calf’ comes into it. And when mountain names are common words, it’s harder to find information about how they came about. But it’s not a weird name; I’m only thinking about it at all because I like to look these things up for these posts.

Wether Fell

A couple of weeks ago I went on a shamefully short walk up Wether Fell. I say shamefully because I started from the highest possible spot, which was quite a drive to get to, and it turned out that actually made it really short. Well, far too short for me to have deserved to reach the summit.

But that’s the walk I did.

So, to reach Wether Fell I had to go to Buckden, which is already a bit of a distance, then beyond that to a tiny village called Hubberholme, then beyond that, out along a road called Stubbing Lane. This took me alongside the River Wharfe at its earliest stage, then across it, before branching. The left road led to Beckermonds, which is where the river starts, but I took the right one, then did the same at the next branch, up Oughtershaw Road. This eventually met Cam High Road, where I again turned right and continued rising, and parked up at the highest point of the road.

Simon Fell

I did this walk three weeks ago, but I had a bit of a backlog of posts – hence why I did two last week. I like having a little bit of backlog, because it’s nice to know for definite what the next two or three posts are going to be. But it was getting to be a bit much.

Anyway. Simon Fell is classed as a subsidiary summit of Ingleborough; there’s a ridge with three summits – the other one being Park Fell. I think most people who do the non-Ingleborough ones do all three in one go, but I’m not the type to go for more than summit at a time (although if I had to do three, it would probably be these ones, since it’s not down and up again).

Pen-y-ghent

Pen-y-ghent is the smallest of the three peaks of Yorkshire, although I always found it the most difficult to climb. Though this time it was a fairly easy climb because I cheated.

Well, I didn’t cheat. I took a completely legitimate, but much shorter, route to the usual one. But I’ve climbed this peak so many times in my life – if not for some years – that when I reached the part where the path I was on reaches the main one it just felt wrong. Like it didn’t make sense that I was at this point in the walk so quickly.It was also quite strange because I didn’t see anyone at all until that point, and then suddenly there was a stream of people.

I’ve always believed ‘Pen-y-ghent’ means ‘hill of the wind’, but apparently that’s just a possibility. It could also mean ‘hill of the border country’.

Birks Fell

Birks Fell is one of three summits on a long ridge separating Wharfedale and Littondale. For a long time it was disputed which summit was the highest point, but in 2012 it was discovered that Birks Fell was bigger than it had previously been recorded as, which not only confirmed at as the highest point on the ridge, but just edged it over the minimum height for a mountain.

‘Birks’ comes from the Old Norse word for birch, because there were once a lot of birch trees on the lower slopes.

Along with Buckden Pike and Great Whernside, Birks Fell is part of the Wharfedale Three Peaks Challenge. So I’ve now climbed all of them, but will almost certainly never attempt the whole thing. I think that would ruin them all for me.

Fountains Fell

Fountains Fell is a hill in North Yorkshire. It’s not the most popular – I saw only one other person while I was up there (admittedly early), and he looked like he was walking the Pennine Way (which passes over the hill), rather than climbing this hill specifically. There are plenty of other peaks to go at – Fountains Fell is right next to the very popular Pen-y-ghent – so I guess it’s probably one that only people who walk quite a bit in the area tend to choose, since most visitors will pick the better known ones.

Although when I was a child Fountains Fell was actually one of my favourite hills, due to a few interesting – well to me – features at the top. Also, if I was climbing it from where I climbed it this time, it would have been a shorter walk than a lot of others, so that may have been a factor.

The hill’s name is comparatively recent and very definite; it comes from the fact that the land was once owned by the monks of Fountains Abbey, who used it as a sheep pasture.

Kelbrook Fell

I climbed another local hill, Kelbrook Fell. It’s smaller than Pinhaw but I had to walk to Kelbrook first, so it knocked me more. It was like two short walks put together.

I started at the top of Barnwood Road in Earby, where it becomes Barnwood Crescent. There’s a path between two properties that leads to a little road that came off Barnwood Road further down; going on to that road when it first started wouldn’t have made any difference.

It’s a very nice road to walk along because this side of Earby ends very abruptly. It’s straight out of the mass of houses into the fields, a farm at the end of the road acting as a lone outlier.

Moughton

Moughton is a small and clearly not very well trodden hill in North Yorkshire, which I recently climbed for the first time in many years. The last time was when I was six or seven at the oldest. I think I have some memories of it; they’re close enough that it’s likely, but I may rediscover another hill that better matches them.

The hill sits behind a little hamlet called Wharfe, near the village of Austwick. Because Moughton is not the most popular hill, I’m not able to find information on the name.

I walked it from Wharfe, which I think is probably the shortest route, but I don’t know. You can’t park in Wharfe; the roads leading in are private, and having walked through it I can attest that there simply isn’t anywhere to park. But there is roadside parking outside the hamlet, and then you can walk in.

Latrigg

Latrigg is one of the smallest fells in the Lake District, but it is Keswick’s hill, making it the one to climb while staying in Keswick. I’d like to give some information on the name, but, I think possibly for the first time ever, I’m not finding anything. So I’ll move on.

There’s a car park somewhere, but I climbed it from Keswick. It wasn’t very far away, and it’s having to walk a long distance to get to a hill that I find difficult, more so than actually climbing one. Heading out to the outskirts of town is Penrith Road, which passes under an old railway bridge. Where the railway once lay is now a bridleway, so you get up onto this bridge, cross the road and the river, and walk on until you’ve passed the old railway station and have reached the car park of a leisure centre.

Cat Bells

Despite being about the longest walk I have done in some time, this post isn’t that long because it is a very straightforward walk. Cat Bells is the kind of hill where once you’re on it, it’s a steady and clear path to the top – at least from the angle I did it. Also, there seem to be a number of places in this area which have more than one possible spelling, or can be written as one or two words, so I’ve just had to pick one for each place.

So, Cat Bells is a fell less than three miles from Keswick, and on the shore of Derwentwater. It’s not that big – I don’t believe it qualifies as a mountain – but again, it’s the longest walk I’ve done in a while. The best guess regarding the name’s origin is that it comes from ‘Cat Bields’, meaning ‘shelter of the wild cat’, but no-one’s really sure.