Читать книгу Great Mountain Days in the Pennines. 50 classic hillwalking routes онлайн

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Hidden from the summit, the return route follows the deep valley of Rundale, which sports a broad track that descends from the col with High Scald Fell along the line of Great Rundale Beck to Dufton. Quarry workings are shortly encountered, relics of the search for barytes.

Wild and rugged, and despoiled by man, Great Rundale is less open than High Cup Gill, the view westwards restricted by the pyramid of Dufton Pike, one of a number of distinctly different little summits dotted along the western side of the Pennines here. These are actually formed from older, Ordovician (formed 495–440 million years ago) and Silurian (440–415 million years) Lake District rocks, which elsewhere have been overlaid with those of the Carboniferous period (350–290 million years old).

But for all the damage that has been done in Great Rundale’s upper reaches, the lower valley is quite a charming end to the day. On approaching Dufton Pike, pass south of it on a broad track, finally to regain Dufton not far from the starting point.