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

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From the car park overlooking Cow Green Reservoir, way up on the moorland of Widdybank Fell, an undistinguished summit that the walk encircles, walk back along the road to a signed path on the right for Cauldron Snout (NY813308) and here leave the road. When the path intercepts a track, turn left briefly to a gate on the right giving into the Nature Reserve.

Stretching across the upper reaches of the River Tees, the Moor House – Upper Teesdale National Nature Reserve comprises 8800 ha and embraces an extensive range of upland habitats typical of the North Pennines. These include hay meadows, rough grazing and juniper woods, as well as limestone grassland, blanket bogs and summit heaths on the high fells. What makes Upper Teesdale so important is that nowhere else in Britain is there such a diversity of rare habitats in one setting.

The reserve is renowned for the plants that originally colonised the high Pennines after the last Ice Age (about 10,000 years ago) and have survived here ever since. There are also rare rock formations, such as outcropping sugar limestone and the Great Whin Sill.