"I wandered lonely as a cloud"

With the easing of the lockdown in England, no doubt many will be resuming SOTA activations. Being cautious, I will be heading for lonely hills. My question is which is your favourite lonely hill in England?

It’s a secret Richard (to keep it that way!) :wink:

Safe wanderings all.

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It has to be Sighty Crag - your question did not refer to the walk to it :rofl:
73,
Rod

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I am thinking that Mickle Fell would be up there for a nice lonely hill. I did it by bike on a beautiful day and before there were quite as many restrictions as there are now. Unfortunately I think that the route that I used is not the permissive route that must be used now.

What’s your favourite (and why?).

Thanks. Actually I did consider that myself. I did that by bike too (well not the last part). I retire on Friday and I am very much looking forward to revisiting some on the Northumberland hills.

Good retirement Richard :+1:
73 Éric

My favourite lonely hill is not a SOTA summit, by a mere metre. It is Earls Hill (also known as Pontesford Hill) in Shropshire. It happens to have the nearest decent rock-climbing crag to Birmingham, Pontesford Rocks, but it is in a lovely quiet location with fantastic views over the Shropshire hills. I can mention it here because the lack of that crucial metre in height means that no sotari will visit it! :smiley:

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I also did it Mickle Fell on a bike part way Richard, when you could, but met a lost student who was trying to find his way to High Cup Nick. He had bivvied overnight. I gave him my laminated map extract and sent him on his way to Maise Beck with a wet feet warning, from the summit. So not the lonliest hill for me. Sighty Crag is certainly one of the lonliest as suggested by Rod. It was the least visited of Marilyns at one time on hillbagging.co.uk. Activators who have not taken the trouble to activate it are missing out.

73 Phil

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Hill of Arisdale GM/SI-197

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One of England’s finest. Specsavers?

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Everywhere is England if you want it enough.

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Wishing you a long and enjoyable retirement, Richard. With many thanks for the wide variety of useful products we are still using for SOTA.
We very much enjoyed our activations of the SB summits, especially looking back on them. A second visit would be a bit of an anticlimax except for Tosson Hill which we did without walking the rest of the escarpment.
73,
Rod

…Nicola Sturgeon never said.

Not sure there is such a thing in the Lakes @G3CWI. I wracked my brains and couldn’t think of any particular hill that I’ve felt lonely on.

I would go for Seatallan or Blake Fell.

Not done either of them yet @G3CWI, so when I do I will try and be mentally prepared for the feeling of loneliness. Although most here would probably consider it a blessing!

Mark. M0NOM

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It might be different nowadays, but in the past I have always found the area around LD-023 Knott to be deserted. People tended not to venture north of Skiddaw and Blencathra.

PS Richard referred to lonely hills, not lonely people!

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I was looking at Knott thinking it might be one of those less-travelled summits. Again, not been there, but on my list!

I guess if the classification is lonely hills then maybe High Raise falls into that category for me.

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I can recommend it for peace and quiet!

Depends on what you mean by lonely. If you mean ‘absence of people’ then being retired I’ve done almost all my activations during the working day specifically to avoid other walkers and have often had many hills to myself even G/LD hills in my newly adopted home in Cumbria.

If by 'lonely’ you meant the place itself has a sense of loneliness about it, I would pick a few SOTAs in Scotland. But sticking to England, Hard Knott (G/LD-034) is surrounded by higher summits and has a haunting lonely feel about it. Or maybe it was just my wet feet affecting my brain.

73 Andy

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