Yorkshire Dales National Park, and that part of Cumbria that lies east of the M6, isn’t a completely new area for me. But previous trips have tended to be quick visits, to do High Cup Nick or some other ‘Nuttall’. And it’s usually been as part of a group. So this was the first time I’d really explored on my own, and (with more time to spare) I got to know the north western part of the area a litter bit better by pottering about and doing some photography in some of the villages and on lower-level walks in the Dales.

It’s a beautiful area of course, with a distinctive mix of natural and man-made features – the rivers and waterfalls, villages like Dent and Hawes with their cobbled streets and their time capsule kind of vibe, and Upper Swaledale with its trademark stone ‘cowusses’ (cowhouses or barns). It seems to me too that the locals are generally very friendly (maybe because they’re not so over-run with tourists as some other areas, or maybe it’s a post-covid thing) and I had plenty of good chats along the way, including a very brief one with Clive from Channel 5’s Our Yorkshire Farm when I needed to give way to his 4×4 on a mountain road!

But the highlight of the week as always was getting up high, onto Nine Standards Rigg and Wild Boar Fell summits.

Nine Standards Rigg ought to be a very easy walk. It’s only a mile and a half (and 200 metres height gain) from the road ‘over the top’ from Kirkby Stephen to Keld, but even John & Anne Nuttall had some difficulty with navigation according to their account in ‘The Hills of England of Wales’, and in good visibility there’s still a boggy area not far from the summit to negotiate, where the paths disappear and tussocky grass slows you down.

Wild Boar Fell, although further from the road and with a 400 metres or so ascent to its 708 metres high trig point was very straightforward. From Mallerstang valley, it looks a fairly imposing pointed peak, but I opted instead to approach on its tamer side, from Street just off the Kirkby Stephen to Sedbergh road. Access is a bit easier on that side – there’s room for a few cars right at the start of the Pennine Bridleway, and parking for many more at a nearby quarry as a fall-back. The Pennine Bridleway takes you fairly easily to a ridge at 582 metres, from where a right turn and a steeper climb up The Nab, followed by a short walk along the summit plateau, gets you to the trig point and shelter. The ford over a mountain stream, half way up and down, is a great spot for a rest stop and a bit of a paddle.

So I added two Nuttalls to my ‘collection’ of 74 in England, and with some low level walks including the ‘Viaduct Walk’ on the disused railway, visits to a few craft centres/galleries and a bit of shopping (Farfield Mill near Sedbergh, Chapel Gallery in Hawes, and Mad about Mountains in Kirkby Stephen shared my week’s spending money!) it added up to a memorable trip. It actually felt like the best holiday in years, though that’s probably because the restrictions of the last 15 months were beginning to feel a lot like house arrest.

My base for the week was a spacious and spotless newly-created apartment in a stone building near the river and Coast to Coast footpath in Kirkby Stephen, which only a dozen or so had stayed in since it opened for business . Check it out here if you fancy a visit : 3 Eden Lodge