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Date: 30 Mar 2003
Start / Finish: Hawes. Car park & toilets.
Maps: Outdoor Leisure 2 Yorks Dales West and Outdoor Leisure 30 Yorks
Dales North & Central.
Day 1 | Drumaldrace, Dodd Fell Hill & Great Knoutberry Hill | 14 miles / 2640 feet (22.5km / 804m) |
Day 2 | Widdale Fell | 9m / - (14.5km) |
This backpack route around Widdale was cut short due to the knee injury, despite having waited 10 days for it to improve. Looks like a visit to the physiotherapist is in order.
Taking the A684 E a footpath leads R to Burtersett village. From the SW end a track climbs directly towards Drumaldrace and we turned off L at 883875 on the bridleway that joins the Cam High Road (CHR) on the S side, leaving a short ascent to the summit 614m. Rejoining the CHR we reached the minor road and walked to North Gate 853840 where we followed the wall W and curved N to Dodd Fell Hill 668m. Descending SW we took the Pennine Way to Cold Kell Gate, where a path sets off W to Gavell Gap and the unmarked start of the Ribble Way. This follows Jam Sike W & SW then bends round to the B6255. A lane leads W to the start of a bridleway N that climbs Wold Fell, this is where my knee pain started again. The bridleway ends near the top but a path continues round to the head of Arten Gill where we collected water a little way down over the wall on the L. Arriving at another bridleway we turned R to the highest point, where there is a stile L with a notice attached describing the permitted path on the L of the wall to Great Knoutberry Hill. After a painful slog up to the trig point there was the compensation of good views.
History repeats itself and the knee pain meant we had to curtail this trip, leaving a slow easy exploration of Widdale Fell as the best route back to Hawes, much the same as Birks Fell on the previous trip. Exploring the Widdale tarns was very pleasant though and we enjoyed the day, except the steep descent from the nose of the fell at 832907 which was mercifully short. After this we aimed SE with no difficulty for the bridleway track at 843903 that leads to Appersett. Along the road a footpath leads N then SE to Hardraw where we followed the PW to Hawes.