What’s the ground like between Great Dun Fell, Little Dun Fell and Cross Fell like? Anquet says the walk up from Kirkland to the summit is about 2hr30 but the walk from Great Dun Fell is a lot shorter, and of course, you can drive half way to the summit of Great Dun Fell on the radar station access road. Here, Anquet says it’s about 1hr30. However, what I’ve read suggests the cols are extremely boggy.
I regularly drive past Cross Fell on the way to and from my mum’s house and Cross Fell “calls out” to me to activate it. Given that I have a nearly 5 hour drive anyway, I’m looking for the shortest route to do this summit. Now a 2hr30 walk up plus some activation and the walk back is a bit longer than I want to spend. But the route from Great Dun Fell sounds like the whole activation can be fitted into 4hours which doesn’t sound too unreasonable, especially if the WX is nice.
So what is the ground really like between these 3 tops. Is it really as bad as many websites suggest or is there a dryish route?
What’s the ground like between Great Dun Fell, Little Dun Fell and Cross Fell like?
m0sgb wrote;
Hi Andy, once at the gate for the radar station, the walk is about 30 minute’s, don’t drive past here as the gate will get locked, from here walk up the road to the station, once at the station go behind onto the slabbed footpath, its just big slabs all the way, to the top, little bit up and down but nice enjoyable walk,
don’t forget on your way down you could do Dufton Pike for 1 point,
In wet weather, it can be bit damp at Crowdundle Head (in between LDF and CF), but other than that it is fine. Bear in mind, the route from Great Dun Fell isn’t much less ascent than that from Kirkland, when you add all the ascents on a return trip together - the “descent” from CF to past GDF requires two more ascents! It is probably a quicker route though.
Ive done the ascent from Kirkland and the ascent from the sign at the base of the Gt Dun Fell access road which proclaims something like Private access road no public access.(see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXv8ayOHjCY) I know other activators have ignored this & driven further up, however just after wed started walking, a police car past us going downhill, so wed of been in bother if wed have gone past the sign. Having done both routes, I would never do the Dun Fell route again. Kirkland it is for me. I think 2.30 hrs is a little generous for the ascent. Ive done it in 1.30 & Im no racing snake.
Sreve G1INK.
It would be Kirkland for me too, simply because it is just about the only one I haven’t done so far. If anyone fancies a satisfying day’s walk taking in Cross Fell, then just park in Dufton village and go from there. That was by far the best walk I ever did to Cross Fell, and the most satisfying bit is actually the walk out of Dufton, by Dufton Pike and then up over Knock Old Man, before you even get to Great Dun Fell.
Hmmm… 4+ miles and 700m of ascent according to Anquet makes 1hr30 sound quick. But there again only 175m / mile. Still sounds quick for a lard bucket like me!
Hmmm… 4+ miles and 700m of ascent according to Anquet makes 1hr30
sound quick. But there again only 175m / mile. Still sounds quick for
a lard bucket like me!
More likely you’ve been living in GM for too long and have forgotten just how short the English mile is. It is definitely shorter than the Welsh one!
More likely you’ve been living in GM for too long and have forgotten just
how short the English mile is.
Arf!
Well the metres down there must be shorter too. 8 points for a pimple like Cross Fell! I know I no longer care about the points but if they’re giving them away it would be rude not to collect them.
(For the humour challenged the above is a joke and is not meant to be taken seriously.)
Cross Fell interests me as I drive past it and, from descriptions I’ve read, on a good day you can see a huge amount of Northern England from there. It’s on the watershed and the start of 3 of the major English rivers. If the WX is OK, I’ll give it a go on the Friday before the Blackpool Rally. At one time I would have been eager to go and peer about the NATS site but as I get older I get more circumspect about serious RF exposure. I know the o/p from such sites looks up more than at the horizon but there’ll be quite a bit of scatter about the place off the towers. RADAR stills depends on that range equation featuring a 10**4 term and we all know how we get around the loss involved don’t we readers!
Thanks once more for the comments and suggestions.
