The Three Peaks – Pen-y-ghent, Ingleborough, and Whernside – are undoubtedly the attention-grabbing stars of the Yorkshire Dales hill walking world, but often overlooked Great Shunner Fell is actually the third highest hill in the Dales. On a gloriously sunny day in April any one of the Three Peaks would see hundreds, possibly thousands, of people hiking up them. On Great Shunner Fell, I encountered six people all day.
Seen from Hawes in Wensleydale, Great Shunner Fell is a forbidding mound of a hill, but from its summit there are expansive views to the North Pennines, the Lake District and across the Dales. The climb to the summit is rarely steep, more a gentle, relentless uphill slog. The 431km long Pennine Way, England’s first National Trail, passes through Hawes before heading out of Wensleydale and over Great Shunner Fell.
The route is well signposted and maintained. There are small bridges and flagstones that help with some of the wet, boggy areas of the fell. Perhaps this is what famed hill walker, Alfred Wainwright meant when he claimed he could climb Great Shunner “nonstop” despite being “senile and getting as fat as a pig”. That said, it’s not difficult to imagine the open and exposed fell being pretty unpleasant in bad weather.
I left the pretty Dales village of Hawes and crossed lush pasture in the valley floor, perfect for the dairy cows that produce milk for Wensleydale cheese. I soon reached the hamlet of Hardraw – famed for its waterfall. I stopped to admire the Church of St. Mary and St. John, before heading up onto the fells. My plan was to visit Thwaite in Swaledale before looping back to Great Shunner Fell.
It would be hard to guess at today, but the wild landscape of Great Shutter Fell was once a coal mining site. Its southern flanks were extensively mined for, albeit fairly low quality, coal that supplied the local area. In the mid-17th century, the mines had been worked for many years. They were still being worked in the early 1900s. It’s said that lumps of coal can be spotted by walkers and there is rusting machinery on the route.
A couple of hours of climbing brought me to the 716 metre summit. A stone wind shelter provided an excuse to stop and drink in the views. It’s quite stupendous. The undulating descent into Swaledale was delightful. Broad, majestic Swaledale is a landscape of stone walls and meadows, a glorious patchwork dotted with stone barns and farmhouses. Seen on the descent from Great Shunner Fell, it is a magnificent sight.
Thwaite is an attractive village, small and sleepy but with a constant flow of visitors. It is also the birthplace of two brothers, Richard and Cherry Kearton, who became pioneers of early wildlife photography. Publishing the first wildlife book to use photos, one of their innovative (read ‘crazy’) photography methods was to hide (for hours on end) inside a fake cow to capture pictures of birds at close range.
Strolling around the village, it dawned on me that I’d made a terrible error. I thought Thwaite had a pub. The Farmers Arms is actually found 2km away in Musker. So, instead of a refreshing pint before the long walk back, I made do with sandwiches and water sitting next to the River Swale. The return journey took me alongside the river in the valley floor before ascending to join the Pennine Way near the top of Great Shunner Fell.
I took what I thought was an alternate route to Hardraw via Fossdale. This was another error. The Fossdale estate earns money from people blasting grouse with shotguns and the route is closed. This forced me to walk over rough open country to Buttertubs Pass. One of the most scenic roads in England, Swaledale farmers used this route to take butter over the pass to sell at markets in Wensleydale.
Resting along the way, they would lower their butter into potholes that dot this area to keep it cool. Buttertubs is also famed amongst cyclists for featuring in the 2014 Grand Depart of the Tour de France. I finally made it to Hardraw and was delighted to discover the Green Dragon Inn and ordered a pint from the local Wensleydale Brewery. It made the final stretch back to Hawes much more pleasant.
