Читать книгу The Pennine Way - the Path, the People, the Journey онлайн

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At Lothersdale, Barry decided he would take a breather. Since I was keen to press on, we said our goodbyes and I climbed up to the bumpy open top of Pinhaw Beacon. Suddenly new vistas were revealed as the ground fell sharply away to the lush green fields of the so-called Aire Gap, the first of three distinct geological breaks in the Pennine chain. To the west, the distinctive outline of Pendle Hill filled the view, while ahead the Yorkshire Dales were beckoning and the Pennine Way was about to go through one of its most exciting transitions.

It’s useful to have some basic understanding of the rocks that underpin the Pennines, in order to grasp how it’s translated on the surface and what that means for the walker in terms of visible scenery and likely conditions underfoot. Until now, I had been walking largely on gritstone and shale, over rounded moorland covered by thin, harsh, acidic soils, water-retaining peat and blanket bog, an environment that supports only a few plant species. Soon I would switch to limestone, a light and permeable rock created by the deposits in a shallow sea 300 million years before. In a limestone environment, most of the surface water disappears underground and the thin, turf-covered soil is punctured by cliffs and rocky scars. A few prominent peaks, such as Pen-y-ghent and Ingleborough, stand proud due to their harder caps of millstone grit. Further north, a volcanic injection of dolerite into the rock strata created the distinctive Whin Sill, today visible as a highly resistant dark rock that forms the crags of High Cup Nick, the waterfalls of Upper Teesdale and the high points of Hadrian’s Wall. In the far north are the older Cheviot Hills, with their hard and resistant granite core, which also owe their height and shape to volcanic activity.