James Deboo climbs a lonely mountain
BY THE LUNE it was still late summer, with hay in the meadows and dragonflies over the water. But above the dragonflies hung an autumnal mist, whilst wisps of cloud brushed Calf Top high overhead. This was the first walk of the year on which, from the warmth of the car, the summits looked cold and threatening. But with the wind from the east the route from Fellside up to Brown Knott – more of a moorland traverse than a climb – was sheltered, the stream bubbling gently where it needed fording.
Squashed beneath the empty Howgills, of which its rocks are an outlier, and the equally empty Forest of Bowland, Middleton Fell has a superbly placed
viewpoint. Peering across to the Lake District from the Dales’ western edge, its long ridge offers airy and exhilarating views of the surrounding ranges, whilst feeling more like a miniature mountain range of its own. In all, it has some eight named summits – the highest of which, Calf Top, has a white trig point, matching that on The Calf, the highest of the Howgills.
In 2016, when the fell was added to the Dales National Park, it was re-surveyed and found to be 609.6m, or precisely 2000ft, which qualifies it as a mountain by the British definition. It’s certainly worthy of mountain status if you consider the effort involved to reach the summit. It’s 3km to the ridge from the start, beyond which there’s another 5km of ridge to the summit. The cloud lifted above me as I climbed, and at the trig point the cloud had risen to reveal the nearby Dales; but beyond the Lune Valley everything was lost in haze, there was a cold wind from the east and conditions felt definitely autumnal. Sandwiches finished, I put on gloves.
Despite all the publicity, this remains a lonely fell, partly because the ascents from Barbondale to the east are unremittingly steep, whilst to the west the landowners seem to have declared war on access. A circular walk via Barbon is possible, but a long return via roads down the west side is hard to avoid. This route managed to bypass these difficulties, whilst still enjoying another couple of km of ridge to Castle Knotts, where I headed along the grassy plateau top for 700m before descending via one of the few gates off the fell that isn’t locked. Thereafter I was treated to a warm, pleasant afternoon’s amble through grazing fields down to, and then along, the River Lune back to the start.