High Cup Nick & Murton Pike

Thu 27 May 21

Still on the theme of Eden Valley Fells, after dropping Richard off at Appleby railway station to go home, I drove on to the village of Murton to the superb carpark there and nipped up Murton Fell with a view to continuing on to see High Cup Nick.  I hadn’t seen High Cup Nick since I was a child and used to walk with my parents!

All photos:
my Zenith manual film SLR

Without further ado, the path sets off out of the carpark and heads straight off up Murton Pike!

As the caption says, you set off up a great track immediately from the carpark for Murton Pike! There were two other chaps with largish rucksacks just in front of me who thought they’d had a better idea however… I thought not!

They struck off straight up the long grassy ridge in the blazing hot sun with their packs while my track meandered quite gently upwards…

After a nice amble, the track flattened out to approach the ridge of Murton Pike where I left the vehicle track for a grassy track to the summit. The final pull is pretty steep but has those nice steps up which have formed in the earth – these are great until ‘mountain’ bikers find the path and annihilate them into a gully! 😦

At the summit I had a decent break in the sun for a coffee and energy bar. I wondered where the two guys with packs had gone and could hear something below. Soon, they appeared about two-thirds of the way up their long ridge looking very hot and bothered and having to have a sit down! I just knew they’d taken the wrong route for the hot weather – it would have been a tedious ascent up the featureless grass anyway – give me a nice track any day!

Pretty soon, I set off back to the vehicle track. I’d noticed on the map that there were two vague summits above me so I decided to branch off and go and look for them. The first one took me just inside the danger area of Warcop Range but I’m pretty sure they don’t do any firing so far from the main range as there’s a deep intervening valley before these hills. I milled around in the rough heather and peat hags but wasn’t sure I ever found the summit.

In the end, I headed back to the tarn I’d seen and which I could see on the map and headed for the other summit (if indeed the second one existed). After I’d done around a mile of rough country in the right direction, I could see two large tower cairns just off to my right. I visited both and decided they must mark the summit. Satisfied, and with boots full of scratchy heather and now very wet, I headed back towards Murton Pike as I wanted to rejoin the vehicle track near the outer end of High Cup Nick.

I was soon back on the track and found I was too high up as I wanted to traverse the very edge of the Nick all the way around. The ground below was rough so, in the end, I just plunged downwards to the craggy edge of the Nick.

The whole traverse around the top of the crags is exceedingly spectacular and I walked along peering at crags and down gullies and clicking away with my trusty film camera.

The next shot I think best illustrates the geological stupdendousness of The Nick – it’s definitely going on my next year’s calendar anyway!

There is a central descent down from the head of The Nick which follows the side of the boulder field down by the beck. It then goes out along the valley for its full length. I’d like to come in this way sometime as the views will be totally spectacular!

Today, however, I crossed the beck and continued with my plan to follow the edge to its completion. There were some nice fell ponies grazing here but I think they were all ‘touristed out’ and wouldn’t come and chat. I didn’t bother them but had another quick coffee in the sunshine…

The route back yields superb photos of the side I’d just traversed 🙂

Looking Across to Murton Pike

View to Murton Pike again

From here there was a lower path which looked less used and closer to the action as it were… I took that and everyone else took the one above so it was nice and quiet…

Very nice evening light starting looking back…

My path rejoined the higher one for the descent. I soon left it though as it curved off to go back to Dufton instead of Murton village. I descended the fellside before a rather attractive hill (which I now wish I’d included – maybe next time!). The fellside was very wet indeed – even in the dry summer we just had.

There was no real route across the river so I just forded it and set off up the opposite hillside to join the path which had come down the valley. I took a last photo looking back to The Nick… this is the view the farmer has from his farm!

Final look back before turning the corner

The path I’d joined passed this very beautiful little pond with the hill I wish I’d done behind it…

And this was my final shot before I ran out of film and put my camera away for the walk back up the road from the farm – another one for the calendar and my favourite shot this year!

From here I had a long walk back along the road – probably about a mile and a half. I found this very hard as I had brand new boots on and, with the heather-bashing and the wetting, I was now getting a very severe blister indeed on the back of my heel!

It was also very hot walking along the road and I found it tedious and was glad to get back to Murton village and my faithful old Sunny at last!

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