important, then be sure to ask about provision when bookings are made. Rural post offices keep disappearing along the route, but the remaining ones are mentioned.
Emergencies
The Pennines and Cheviot Hills are not particularly dangerous, and the biggest problem unwary walkers are likely to face is the prospect of losing their way on a featureless moorland. However, accidents and injuries could occur almost anywhere on the route and the intervention of the emergency services might be required. To contact the police, ambulance, fire service or mountain rescue, telephone 999 (or the European emergency number 112), and state clearly the nature of the emergency. Give them your telephone number and, most importantly, keep in touch while a response is mounted.
ALL ABOUT THE PENNINES
Pennine geology
As a teenager and a student of geology, I was not content simply to admire the Pennines. I wielded a hammer and chisel so that I could take great chunks of them home with me!
Pennine geology is relatively easy to understand, although in a few places it becomes very complex. The oldest bedrock is seldom seen on the Pennine Way, revealing itself only around Malham and Dufton. Ancient Silurian slate at Malham Tarn, along with Ordovician mudstone and volcanic rock above Dufton, date back 450 million years. These rocks are revealed only where fault lines bring them to the surface. The Weardale Granite, which underlies the North Pennines, outcrops nowhere and was only ‘proved’ by a borehole sunk at Rookhope in 1961.
In the Devonian period, around 395 million years ago, violent volcanic activity laid the foundations of the Cheviot Hills, at the northern end of the Pennine Way. All the lower hills are made of andesite lavas, while the central parts are formed of a massive dome of granite, pushed into the Earth’s crust some 360 million years ago and only recently exposed to the elements.
During the Carboniferous period, around 350 to 300 million years ago, a warm, shallow tropical sea covered the whole region. Countless billions of hard-shelled, soft-bodied creatures lived and died in this sea. Coral reefs grew, and even microscopic organisms often had hard external or internal structures. Over the aeons, these creatures left their hard parts in heaps on the seabed, and these deposits became the massive grey limestones seen to best effect today in the Yorkshire Dales.
Limestone pavement on top of Malham Cove (Day 6)
Even while thick beds of limestone were being laid down, storms were eroding distant mountain ranges. Vast rivers brought mud, sand and gravel down into the sea. These murky deposits reduced the amount of light entering the water, causing delicate coral reefs and other creatures to perish. As more mud and sand was washed into the sea, a vast delta spread across the region.
At times, shoals of sand and gravel stood above the waterline, and these became colonised by strange, fernlike trees. The level of water in the rivers and sea was in a state of flux. Sometimes the delta was completely flooded, so the plants would be buried under more sand and gravel. The compressed plant material within the beds of sand and mud became thin bands of coal, known as the Coal Measures. This alternating series of sandstones and mudstones, with occasional seams of coal, can be seen best in the Dark Peak and the South Pennines. Remnants of the series can also be studied on the higher summits of the Yorkshire Dales and North Pennines.
The Carboniferous rocks were laid down in layers, helping to explain what happened next, around 295 million years ago. An extensive mass of molten dolerite was squeezed, under enormous pressure, between the layers of rock – rather like jam between two slices of bread. This rock is always prominent wherever it outcrops, chiefly in the North Pennines and along Hadrian’s Wall, where it is referred to as the Whin Sill.
Almost 300 million years are ‘missing’ from the Pennine geological record, in which time the range has been broken into enormous blocks by faulting. The Yorkshire Dales and North Pennines display plenty of limestone, as their ‘blocks’ stand higher than the Peak District and South Pennines. Glaciers scoured the entire range during the Ice Age, and many parts are covered with glacial detritus in the form of boulder clay, sand and gravel. More recent climatic changes resulted in the upland soil becoming so waterlogged that thick deposits of peat have formed on most of the higher moorlands.
Pennine scenery
The underlying geology of the Pennines shapes the scenery along the Pennine Way. The Dark Peak and the South Pennines, whose foundations are sandstones and shales, with gritstone ‘edges’, give rise to acid clay soils, which encourages the formation of thick blanket bog. This bog has been growing for the past 7000 years, but in many places it is decaying, so that the moorlands are riven by peat channels, or ‘groughs’, with high banks of peat between them, known as ‘hags’. Given that the blanket bogs absorb considerable amounts of carbon dioxide, their rapid decay gives cause for concern and efforts are being made to stabilise the remaining bogs and reverse the trend.
Where limestone dominates, particularly in the Yorkshire Dales but also in parts of the North Pennines, the landscape often looks fresh and green, covered in short, dense, sheep-grazed turf, with bright cliffs and outcrops, or ‘scars’, of limestone poking through. Limestone country is fascinating, mostly because of the way the rock dissolves slowly over the aeons, giving rise to a distinctive landscape known as ‘karst’ topography. Limestone doesn’t just wear down like other rocks but dissolves inside itself, becoming riddled with caves and passages. When these are close to the surface, they may collapse, forming ‘shake holes’.
In the North Pennines, the existence of the igneous Whin Sill, sandwiched between older beds of rock, forms some of the most striking landscapes in the North Pennines and Northumberland. The mighty Teesdale waterfalls, the striking High Cup and the rugged crest bearing Hadrian’s Wall are all formed by the Whin Sill, which also outcrops along the Northumberland coast.
Technically, and geologically, the Pennines end just south of Hadrian’s Wall, so the continuation northwards through Northumberland results in another shift in the scenery. While Carboniferous rocks lie underfoot at first, by the time the high Cheviot Hills are reached, the bedrock is either lava or granite. The central granite mass of The Cheviot stands broad-shouldered, with all the other Cheviot Hills huddled around it. The poor acid soil supports thick blanket bog. Many walkers, seeing the Cheviot Hills after spending so long in the Pennines, are surprised at how hilly they are, but this is short-lived, as the Pennine Way ends suddenly with a descent into rolling, pastoral countryside.
The Helm Wind
Most walkers on the Pennine Way hear about the ‘Helm Wind’ but few understand what it is. The Helm Wind is the only wind in Britain with a name. It only blows from one direction and it gives rise to a peculiar set of conditions. Other winds blow from all points of the compass, but the Helm is very strictly defined, restricted to the East Fellside flank of the North Pennines, and according to local lore, no matter how much it rages, it cannot cross the Eden.
The Helm Wind blows down the steep western slopes of the North Pennines
First, there needs to be a northeasterly wind, with a minimum speed of 25kph (15mph), which the Beaufort Scale calls a ‘moderate breeze’. This isn’t the prevailing wind direction and it tends to occur chiefly in the winter and spring. Track the air mass from the North Sea, across low-lying country, as far as the Tyne Gap. The air gets pushed over Hexhamshire Common, crossing moorlands at around 300m (1000ft). It next crosses moorlands at around 600m (2000ft) and then Cross Fell and its neighbours are reached at almost 900m (3000ft). There are no low-lying gaps through the North Pennines, so there is nowhere for the air mass to go but over the top.
As the air is pushed up from sea level, it cools considerably. Any moisture it picked up from the sea condenses to form clouds, and these are most noticeable as they build up above the East Fellside. This feature is known as the ‘Helm Cap’. If there is little moisture present it is white, while a greater moisture content makes it much darker, resulting in rainfall.