The Shropshire Switchbacks
These hills are famous – or infamous – among trekkers as the hardest miles of the Offa’s Dyke Path. While the section’s summit lies at only just over 1400 feet, the elevation profile zig-zags up and down like the line of a heart-rate monitor and you’ll notch up 3200 feet of pulse-quickening ascent if you walk all 15 miles from Knighton to Brompton Crossroads. The panorama provides constant distraction – you’re in the Shropshire Hills Area of Outstanding Beauty – and there’s a wild and enticingly lonely feel to these hills too. Much of border country is overlooked; but you feel it here more than anywhere. Plus there’s the dyke of course. Offa’s earthwork stands at its proudest through these miles, the path often right atop its crest, making it easy to wonder about life as a Mercian soldier as you march along. It’s most impressive of all at Llanfair Hill, which is also where you cross the Jack Mytton Way, a trail named after a local aristocrat who liked to ride a bear to dinner, kept 2000 dogs and dressed as a highwayman to chase his guests home, just for a jape. That Way provides a 9¼-mile figure of eight route up from Lloyney for walkers keen to walk the Offa’s Dyke Path across Llanfair Hill without doing the whole run of the switchbacks. And throughhikers might be heartened to know they’ll hit the trail’s midway marker above Newcastle on Clun.