The Pike

Fellside Walk
(Stage 5)

It is quite a pull up from the bridge where we were yesterday. The track is steep and rugged, but eventually we get to some sheep pens and a gate and we are out onto the open fell. Now we have reached Dufton Pike itself and are walking below it. 

It is possible to walk up of course and a lot of people do. In fact Gordon spied a family on the top as we approached it. But it is a steep and tedious climb and I think the views are better from around the back, rather than from the top. I have been up a few times, in fact one clever blipper remembers that I blipped my climb a long time ago. (That event may get mentioned later.)

There are three Pikes in this area. They are conical hills where the slates and volcanic rocks, the oldest rocks in the North Pennines, have been exposed. These rocks were formed between 480 and 420 million years ago. They were once mud and volcanic ash at the edge of a wide ocean. The pale, streaky rocks you can see high up on the hillside are a type known as ash-flow tuff, which formed in explosive volcanic eruptions around 450 million years ago. 

In the photo, especially if you look large, you can see the track as it follows the foot of the Pike and then meanders up to get round the back. That's the way we are going tomorrow. However, if the weather breaks, or my knee thinks it has had enough, I may change tack.