Summit B: Chapel Fell at Harthope
Peak: 626m / 2,054ft (highest avenue)
From the rugged Weardale-bottom village of St John’s Chapel, a avenue lumbers appropriate as soon as extra up and over to Teesdale as quickly as further. It’s the primary connection between these dales.
An indication on the underside says ‘CYCLISTS: This route is liable to poor native climate circumstances on a regular basis’.
They’re not joking. It’s a sunny August day, nonetheless there are malicious clouds and drizzle on the prime, plainly seen on the ascent to the ridge in entrance of me.
It’s barely little little bit of a haul, with some company, nonetheless a simple haul. Midway up, the auto behind me is rattling like a wheelie bin filled with tinfoil trundling over cobbles.
It grinds to a halt, then reverses, freewheel, all the simplest method as soon as extra down. This isn’t the place for a mechanical.
Quite a few hairpins and I’m on the distinct, exhilarating summit.
In France, they commemorate such factors with an infinite signal – 'Col de Harthope Sommet 626m', plus congratulatory graffiti, 'Allez! Efficiently carried out! Beers on the tip Robi!', or such.
In England, we’re saying factors equivalent to ‘Cattle Grid’ and ‘Watch out for Adders’.
It’s England’s highest avenue, 626m up. Overlook any GPS figures you’ve seen confidently quoted on-line. Ignore what your Garmin tells you.
Their algorithms make guesses, they’re inconsistent, they misinterpret, they don’t know precisely the place sea stage is (it’s in a shed in Newlyn, in Cornwall).
For elevation figures, notion the Ordnance Survey, an unbiased OS spokesperson assures me.
Typical fieldwork by groups climbing between triangulation elements has measured and cross-checked the spot-heights you see on OS maps, they often’re the one dependable information for altitude.
So correct proper right here I’m, the nation’s prime avenue bicycle proprietor, for now anyway. I’ve pleasurable with a pasty and a swig of water, and take all through the lordly views. I can see Good Dun Fell to my appropriate.
Two cars cease; the drivers chat to 1 one different by means of wound-down residence residence home windows relating to the inconceivable atmosphere, nonetheless preserve inside to view it.
I end up my pasty, and like a kayaker in rapids, I shoot the expansive, rolling felltops as soon as extra all one of the simplest ways proper right down to Teesdale.