When the Wind Stops Blowing: A Walk Up to High Cup Nick. . .

One of the iconic walks in England that everyone says you need to do at least once is High Cup Nick. It is part of the Pennine Way and starts from the little village of Dufton, in the Eden Valley, just north and east of the Lake District. Ideally, a sunny summer's day is the best time to tackle this walk, but some days you just can't choose the weather.  It looked a bit iffy when we started, but we had done the drive, and so on we went.

This is quite a popular walk so the path is well marked and wide.  This is on the way up, looking back towards Dufton and Dufton Pike.

Unfortunately, the mists and low cloud really started to roll in as we got to the big view, with only the briefest of breaks.  Visibility looked grim, so reluctantly we decided to cut the walk short and return the way we had come.

We stopped about fifteen minutes on the way back to eat lunch. The wind had dropped and lo and behold, the skies started to clear.  That's Merton Pike across the valley which was completely hidden when we started to eat.

So we decided to go on as intended.

And got the full view this time!

We then continued our walk along the other side of the valley.

I love all the colours in the moorland at this time of year.

We walked a mile or two over the moors towards Merton Pike.

Here it is in front of us, just begging to be climbed.

So we did, and here is the view from the top - looking towards Dufton Pike, near to where we started our walk.

We descended into the village of Merton and then it was a four mile walk back through fields to Dufton.  Here is another view of Merton Pike from the other side.

In total it was about a twelve mile circular walk and we were very lucky that the scheduled rain didn't start coming down until we were back in the car and headed home.  It's a lovely walk, even under grey skies, and great to cross this one finally off our list.