Yorkshire Dales Walks
Wether Fell & Dodd Fell
Date: 17th July 2004
Distance: 11 miles
Ascent: 1826 feet
Time: Too long ago to remember!
With: Matt
Start Grid Ref: SD875898
Walk Summary:
A nice descent along the Pennine Way made up for the poor weather on this walk up on to Wether Fell and Dodd Fell.
Route Summary: Hawes - Burtersett - Wether Fell - Cam High Road - Dodd Fell Hill - West Cam Road - Pennine Way - Gayle - Hawes
Pictures:
1. Great visibility on the top of Wether Fell
2. Looking across to Snaizeholme Fell
3. Great Shunner Fell
4. Lovely Seat and Abbotside Common
5. Wether Fell from the vicinity of Ten End
Walk Detail: For the third weekend in a row the weather was rubbish. The climb from Burtersett to the top of Wether Fell was mostly via fairly steep rocky paths much like the one we had used at the start of the Great Coum and Crag Hill walk.
What made it less pleasant was the weather; firstly there had been a lot of rain that week so walking up the rocky path was something akin to walking up a steep streambed. Secondly the cloud was very low so there was nothing to see and thirdly the temperature was very warm so it got very muggy climbing up.
I could barely see for my glasses getting steamed up and when we finally located the small pile of stones marking the Drumaldrace summit of Wether Fell my camera had got condensation in the lense.
After seeing absolutely nothing of Wether Fell and its view we headed on to Dodd Fell. There was less of a path to follow here and we had to negotiate a few streams and bogs. The ground itself was exceptionally damp with lots of standing water.
The summit of Dodd Fell is fairly flattish and the trig point looked like it was stood in a pond. As we arrived on the Pennine Way the weather began to improve and for the first time we actually got a view of something, in this case Snaizeholme Fell.
We decided to take advantage of the improving weather and somewhere in the region of Ten End we sat on the western edge of the fell and ate our lunch overlooking the valley nestling between Dodd and Snaizeholme Fells.
The rest of the journey proved to be rather pleasant, the sun made a belated appearance and the descent to Gayle was probably one of my favourites, along with the descent to Kettlewell from Great Whernside, from that first year of walking.
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