Innholdsfortegnelse for September 2025 i Country Walking

WRITE TO US AT: Country Walking, Media House, Lynch Wood, Peterborough PE2 6EA EMAIL: editorial@countrywalking.co.uk FACEBOOK: facebook.com/countrywalking TWITTER/X: x.com/countrywalking LETTER OF THE MONTH A game of chance As both a teacher and a parent, I know the familiar challenge of keeping children engaged during school holidays, especially the epic six-week summer break. With four kids at home, the siren call of modern technology and social media often drowns out the whispers of the great outdoors. But then, it hit me: why not resurrect a lockdown favourite that brought so much joy – Dice Walking! The concept is simple – let the dice decide the route. At every junction point, whether it be a path or a road, get the kids to roll the dice. If they roll a 1, 2…

ALTITUDE IS VERY important to some people, and certain numbers in particular. Take Leith Hill. Many walk to its summit 294m/965ft up on Surrey’s greensand ridge and simply relish the long views. But that wasn’t enough for wealthy local Richard Hull. He wanted to stand higher than 1000 feet and so, in 1765, he built a 64‑foot (19½m) Gothic tower on top. Handily, it also lifted Leith above Berkshire’s Walbury Hill so Hull could be the highest person in south-east England (it also pushes through 300m into the next of our categories, except buildings don’t count). He called it Prospect House and furnished the roof with telescopes for visitors to enjoy the panorama. The local Dorking Advertiser claimed in 1889 you could see ‘12 counties and a circuit of 200…

HAVE YOU EVER reached the summit of a hill and thought, ‘what on earth do I do now?’ You’ve been aiming for this target lingering above your head for hours. Eventually, you reach it, and you gaze at the view while your heart rate gradually eases. You turn slowly, like one of those bachelor-pad beds from the 60s, soaking in all 360 degrees of land shapes. You might even take a selfie. But then what? Strike up a conversation with an equally uncertain summiteer? Stop for a lunch that you soon realise would be better munched out of the wind? There’s no such quandary on Hay Stacks. Once you reach the crest of this Lakeland fell, the fun has only just started. Before you lies a chaotic outdoor playground -…

IT’S A TRICKY thing to get your head around, the concept of time. Take the British Isles for example. Five hundred million years ago, when the first life forms began tiptoeing their way across our planet, Britain and Ireland lay beneath shallow seas, patrolled by primeval sharks and dominated by coral reefs. Fast forward 100 million years to the Devonian period (told you it was difficult), where a major extinction event has killed off 50% of life on Earth, and you’ll find our islands poking their heads above water, part of a semi-arid continent criss-crossed by a network of raging rivers. At the same time, the once-mighty Caledonian Mountains are being battered by ferocious weather systems, splintering their colossal peaks and almost wiping the entire range off the face of…

NOW WE MOVE into the BIG stuff, and Scotland is the only part of Britain where peaks heap higher than 1100m. Lochnagar (1155m). Ben Lui (1130m). Ben Cruachan (1126m). Their names have a gravity. Hear them once and they’ll never let go, setting off sparks in your imagination until you get yourself to the mass of rock that earned that title and climb to its very top. Make no mistake; Bidean nam Bian is one of those names. But with all of those Highland giants to choose from, why would you pick this 1150m stack? The answer’s simple: it’s a world in itself. If, like any canny adventurer, you turn to the Scottish Mountaineering Council’s The Munros book for guidance, you’ll discover that ‘the whole massif is rocky and steep-sided,…

CHARNWOOD FOREST IS not a forest in the modern sense of the word. Nor was it a royal forest in the Middle Ages sense. It is, however, a brilliant place to go walking, and it now forms the eastern chunk of the maturing National Forest, where native tree planting has filled gaps between existing areas of woodland. In places, the trees are healing the scars left by quarrying, which has been going on locally for centuries. The famously hard local geology comprises some of England’s oldest rocks, which are exposed as jagged crags on higher ground. Some of the most impressive of these Precambrian outcrops can be found in Bradgate Park, which is home to some of Britain’s oldest fossils. Fern-like impressions left by life-forms belonging to the genus Charnia…

CE AXE? CHECK. Crampons? Check. Kendal mint cake? Check. We should be okay without supplementary oxygen, but let’s keep a tank in Ireserve, just in case. Forgive my gentle sarcasm. I could have bristled somewhat when, of all the fantabulous uplands I could have written about for this anthology of altitude, I ended up with the Bartlow Hills. Oli gets a Welsh icon; Guy gets possibly the greatest view in Scotland. I get a mound. (A phrase I now find myself singing to the tune of a certain Beach Boys song.) So instead of heading off to some exquisite protected area and climbing some kind of icon, here I am in Cambridgeshire, England’s flattest country, huffing up some wooden steps to a ‘hill’ that a) isn’t natural and b) could…

YOU DON’T HAVE to be a short person to know that height is no way to value things, but let me tell you it helps. There’s a great deal of bigger = better in hill-walking, as in all things, and it would be the pugnacious short person’s job of a lifetime to change that. But it’s still a battle worth waging on your personal front, because our time is finite, and there are many scintillating, even breathtaking peaks hiding below the field of view of millions of misguided mountain lovers. And there are also (whisper it) many absolute yawn-fests that find themselves through no skill of their own taking up space in an approved category of altitude and thereby on people’s to-do lists. And let’s not forget, if we were…

THERE ARE SOME who argue that Cnicht isn’t really a mountain at all, but merely the south-western end of a long ridge. And it’s true that from some angles it’s hard to tell what all the fuss is about. But perspective holds the key to appreciating what an absolute marvel this 689m summit actually is. The perspective most people get – and you’ll get if you start from the tiny village of Croesor – is one that couldn’t be more mountain-like if it was drawn by a five-year-old Edmund Hillary. From here, and for the entirety of the ascent, your eye is transfixed on this perfect pyramid pointing to the heavens. As with many similarly-shaped peaks, it draws comparison to the Matterhorn in the Alps (it’s known as the Welsh…

WHAT A FIGHT we have here. Let’s rattle off some of the competitors for this bracket: Tryfan, Foinaven, Skiddaw, Beinn Alligin, Blabheinn… there are many big stars here. And yet in any list where Helvellyn is a contender, Helvellyn will probably win. Wainwright summed it up in his first few lines: ‘Legend and poetry, a lovely name and a lofty altitude combine to encompass Helvellyn in an aura of romance… there is no doubt Helvellyn is climbed more often than any other mountain in Lakeland.’ It is, if this makes any sense, the Lake District’s Snowdon (Yr Wyddfa). Among their common DNA strands is variety of ascent; there are myriad ways up this broadshouldered behemoth, whether you attack it from the south via Grisedale Tarn; from Thirlmere via its bulky…

CÁRN MÒR DEARG dares to raise its head amongst those of giants. Though not vertically challenged itself – this ‘great red cairn’ is the ninth highest peak in the country – its proximity to Ben Nevis means it is rarely admired for itself. Instead it is ticked off on the way to the summit of Britain, no more than a courtier to the king of Scotland’s Highlands. Yet it fully deserves a place in the world of mustdo mountains. Where others in this height bracket like Braeriach (1296m) and Cairn Gorm (1245m) tend to sprawl, Càrn Mòr Dearg tapers to an enticing point at the southern end of a mile-long ridge. Three named peaks crest this sleeping beauty: Carn Beag Dearg (1010m) at its northern tip, Carn Dearg Meadhonach (1179m)…

AUGUST ANSWERS JULY WINNERS Wendy Edwards, Carway Philip Day, Yorkshire Nicola Andrew, Belper August issue winners will be published next month. Full terms and conditions can be found at greatcompetitions.co.uk Win Cicerone guidebooks Three lucky winners will each get to select two guidebooks from Cicerone’s range, including The National Trails of England, Scotland and Wales and Walking in Arran. For more details, Tel. 01539 562069 or visit www.cicerone.co.uk EMAIL COMPLETED PUZZLES TO: cwcrossword@bauermedia.co.uk Closing date: 12 September 2025 WIN! Bauer Media Group (the publishers of Country Walking) have other great offers and promotions that we think you’ll like, but if you’d rather not hear about these offers, please tick this box □ For our privacy policy visit bauerdatapromise.co.uk Bauer Media Group consists of Bauer Consumer Media Ltd, Bauer Radio Ltd…

1 A festival is breaking down barriers Around 50 free social walks are taking place over the next month in the YHA’s fourth Festival of Walking (12 Sep-12 Oct). This year the focus is on breaking down barriers and giving you the confidence to go it alone. There will be guided map and navigation walks for beginners, walks centred around wellness and mindfulness, and accessible walks. There will also be women-only social walks run by nationwide community group Outdoor Adventure Girls. The walks start from YHAs across England and Wales. Visit yha.org.uk/festival-of-walking to join one. 2 Farmers will be paid to clean rivers We all like to see healthy rivers and streams on our walks, and pollution is a huge concern. It’s not just an issue for water companies; animal waste…

DEFINE ‘ICON’. ORIGINAL meaning: an image used in religious observance. Latter-day meaning: a person or thing worthy of veneration. Glastonbury Tor has ticked both meanings throughout human history. Today it’s in the background of long shots as the camera pulls back from Jarvis Cocker or Olivia Rodrigo on the Pyramid Stage, its moundand-tower profile rising out of the Somerset Levels to form one of the most immediately recognisable sights in the English countryside. But way before such modern veneration, the tor had been a place of pilgrimage for centuries. Archaeological evidence suggests it was a focus of spiritual activity from at least the early medieval period. By the 12th century, it had become a Christian pilgrimage site, likely connected to nearby Glastonbury Abbey. The tower on the top is all…

IF YOU’VE EVER wanted to explore a reef without a snorkel, this quiet corner of the Peak District is for you. Chrome Hill is the skeleton of an ancient tropical reef: formed in a warm, shallow sea 330 million years ago, somewhere south of the equator. Here the bodies of corals and shellfish accumulated on the sea floor, and gradually fossilised into a limestone reef. Over time, the land drifted north and was buried under layers of sediment – which have since eroded away to reveal the reef to the open sky. And it turns out reef makes a spectacular hill; for our money the finest both in this altitude bracket and this national park. Curiously though, Chrome doesn’t have a summit height marked on the OS map. Its altitude…

IT’S OFTEN DISAPPOINTING when things turn out to be smaller than you thought they were. Packets of crisps. The boot space of an SUV. The Mona Lisa. In fact, just about the only thing which is smaller than it looks, yet whose enjoyment factor remains unaffected upon this discovery, is a mountain in the North-West Highlands by the name of Suilven. Looming above Lochinver, Suilven appears monstrous. The domed summit of Caisteal Liath surveils the village with an unnerving glower, its apparent vastness made all the more stark by its isolation. Surely, thinks the human mind, that mountain must be a supergiant? Not so. Clocking in at 731m, Suilven is but a whisker taller than Ingleborough in the Yorkshire Dales. In the Lake District it would be ‘just’ a mid-range…

IF THERE’S ONE mountain in the entire world that can claim to be all things to all people, then Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon) is the one. If you’re not keen on heights and like a well-formed path, there’s a track for you. If you’re after a bit of fun and adventure, this is also the place for you. If you’re a seasoned mountaineer and want to push the limits of your technical prowess and bravery, then once again, Yr Wyddfa has what you’re after. Broad paths, rocky trails, reflective tarns, scree slopes, swimming holes, ancient woodlands, scrambles, pinnacles, knife-edge ridges – it has the lot. And for those who hate walking, there’s even a train to the top and a café when they get there. It seems an impossible achievement. Yet…

ONLY TWO SUMMITS in Britain break 1300m: the kingpin Ben Nevis and the 36m-shorter Ben Macdui. You’d think the winner would be obvious. It’s estimated 150,000 people climb Nevis every year to stand at 1345m and the top of a nation, most of them zig-zagging up the Mountain Path/Pony Track from Glen Nevis. But it’s Ben Macdui that gets our vote: wilder, remoter, and a giant adventure no matter how you tackle it. This huge, domed mountain stands deep in the heart of the Cairngorms National Park, part of a high sub-Arctic plateau home to many life-forms left from the last ice age. Comprised primarily of pink, wind-softened granite, walking on Ben Macdui’s bouldery plateau is a bit like exploring an alien planet. High ski car parks to the north…

Email your picture, along with a few words about the walk and your contact details to cwroutes@bauermedia.co.uk THIS MONTH’S PRIZE WINNER CORFE CASTLE, Route 3, Spring 2025 Point 7 of this family walk was only metres from our tent at a campsite near Corfe Castle so it was a perfect chance to do some walking with Alex and Amelia. Fuelled by a stop at the village sweet shop, they were ready to jump stepping stones on the river before climbing the Purbeck Hills. Thanks for helping make some memories. Joy Willshire, by email BROAD CHALKE & THE OX GROVE, Route 2, March 2022 We called this the Downs and Bottoms walk as we seemed to be walking on one or the other all morning. This delightful walk, full of wildflowers in…