I parked in Keld opposite the Countryside and Heritage Centre or, to give it its much classier older name, the Literary Institute. At the bottom of the hill past the church where there is a car park on the left there is a track off to the right that leads to left run down to a bridge over the river. From here quite a steep climb up leads to East Stonesdale Farm. After passing the farm the way forks. Right is the Pennine Way and my outward route, left the way I would return. On uphill to pass Frith Lodge then gently downhill to cross Lad Gill, then uphill again over Stonesdale Moor to the Tan Hill Inn with great views west along the way to Nine Standards Rigg and South to Great Shunner Fell.

From Tan Hill I followed the tarred road back towards Keld for about 300m to where a footpath set off to the right signposted to Ravenseat. This makes for extremely pleasant walking up to and over Stonesdale Beck then along the side of the dramatic gash of Thomas Gill, left at a signpost along Thomas Gill Ridge and over Robert’s Seat (visiting the top of this was a short detour from the path). The path now crosses the fence and heads swiftly down to Ravenseat Farm. Just before the river crossing, there is a permissive path off over a field to the left that bypasses the farm policies. I took it and was soon past the farm making my way down Whitsun Dale. The path became a track and led to a bridge joining the B6270 but, just before the bridge a footpath heads off left that keeps one’s feet off tarmac. It leads to the road heading north to Tan Hill which I crossed and then continued along the access track to East Stonesdale Farm to rejoin my outward route.

Burnhope Reservoir can be reached from Cowshill to the north or from Ireshopeburn to the east. The former is to be preferred if you don’t like having to stop your car to open and close gates as I learned by using the latter approach. After parking at the north end of the dam I  walked back over it and on over some sheepy pasture to pass an old lime kiln by the junction with Causeway Road. Right here and up towards Colberry End. Just as the latter is approached a fence crosses the track which I followed SE-ish towards Three Pikes. The going here gets very rough, boggy and criss-crossed by groughs. There was a fair bit of snow on the ground and it was not a nice day but not quite cold enough to freeze the ground and tame the bogs. Splash splash. Squelch squelch.  When the fence gives out there is a boundary stone and half a kilometre south of that after some more bog a cairn. According to the Nuttalls this is not quite the top which is a bit to the east of here. I found a tiny pile on stones more or less where they say to look and was happy enough with that. At which point it was time to retrace my steps over the bogs back to Coldberry End. An easy short ascent took me from here to the top of Great Stony Hill. Then easily down the track back to the dam.

The easy way up Black Hill is to follow the Pennine Way from the A635 to the north, a mile and a half each way  up and down. The classic way is to follow the Pennine Way from Crowden to the south. A rather perverse way is to lengthen the former route considerably by starting much further north at the Standedge car park on the A62. Be careful driving into this  at the entrance is guarded by a couple of rather large potholes. The Pennine Way leads south from here stringing together a series of reservoirs: Redbrook, Black Moss, Swellands, Wessendale, Wessendale Head.  It was a beautiful sunny Palm Sunday and it was very busy, loads of people, loads of dogs. Just before Wessendale Lodge I briefly deviated from the Pennine Way to loop round to the right and visit an attractive waterfall. Annoyingly, especially on so fine a day, just as I came to the A635 my camera battery died and I wasn’t carrying a phone so no pictures thereafter.

Leaving the A635 one is already 451m. up the 582m. of Black Hill so it’s not a long climb. Flagstones most of the way make it a pretty easy one. My way down was trickier, following the ROW shown on the map going NW across Wessenden Head Moor. Donkin in his Circular Walks book warns the reader that this is rough going. It is indeed rough going. The path is often decidedly vestigial. Occasional marker posts make life a little easier with the excellent visibility I enjoyed – this route would be very hard to follow in bad weather.  It was boggy often very boggy and a number of groughs had to be negotiated. It was a relief finally to get back to the A635. I didn’t expect much respite as Donkin warns readers that the path back to Standedge from here over Saddleworth Moor, after a brief flagstoned section, is another uncomfortable slog over very tough, boggy, terrain. But I think the path has been improved since he wrote this warning. Today the flagstones take on almost the whole way to Black Moss Reservoir just before which there is as short and easy section without them and after the reservoir back on the Pennine Way and so easily home.  I say ‘easily’ – I was quite tired by this point.

Cumbria had had a battering. The Beast from the East - as the press called it - had dumped a ton of snow all over but very much here and something called Storm Emma had blown it into huge drifts. Driving up the previous day thhe radio was all about military helicopters flying food into remote villages hereabouts that were cut off by snow. But now it was thawing and things seemed under control. I was pleasantly surprised to find that even the tiny minor road hat goes south from the A685 near Newbiggin-on-Lune to Waesdale was clear and very drivable. Coming into Weasdale there is a ruined farmhouse on the left. Just before this there is a place you can park. Just before this there is a track off to the left. I parked in the place and walked up the track which leads all the way over the top of Green Bell to the top of Randygill Top. I can down the same way following my own footprints. A nice easy hill walk for a wintery day. Visibility on the tops was very poor. But not so cold and especially as I came down the snow was disappearing very fast.

Car parks punctuate the South Tyne Trail and one is at Rowfoot just by where a sign off the main road points to the Wallace Arms. I parked here at walked south, easily down trail to the spectacular Lambley Viaduct. After crossing this some steps led me downhill to fork left and, very soon afterwards, branch right on a path that led me into Lambley. I turned left here. The path I wanted is unsignposted but is the obvious gap in the buildings just before the churchyard. This takes a tunnel to pass under a b-road before crossing some fields to a point where a minor road joins the A689. The right of way as you approach the road is signposted right across the garden of someone’s house. Alternatively you can just go left a bit and use a gate. Which I did. Opposite the minor road a track heads south. I followed this a short way to pick up the Pennine Way which I then followed north.

Back to the A689, across it, alongside a wall till the latter changes direction when it continues in the original direction, past the ruined High House then right and downhill to a bridge across the Hartley Burn then left and up again and over a bog field to Batey Shield Farm. Kevin Donkin in his Pennine Way Circular Walks – of which this is one – suggests skipping that last sentence and getting to the point by following the minor road north from the A689, writing: “This follows the course of Maiden Way, a Roman route running over the Pennine ridge (the name means ‘great ridge way’), and offers a good alternative to the unappealing mix of boggy moorland and cattle-churned pasture that is the next section of the Pennine Way. “ A key word is cattle-churned: this is of course a nice subtle way of saying to the reader, “If you are scared of cows, you might want to avoid this bit and here is how,”  while sparing us all the embarrassment of any of us having to admit that we are anything of the sort. I stuck to the Pennine Way where I met no cows at all, unsurprisingly as it was the kind of very cold weekend when you would expect them to be away from their pasture somewhere warm and indoors but it was clear from the, er, material evidence underfoot that it is indeed pretty intensely cow-populous hereabouts when the weather is warmer. It was still quite tough going with no cattle to duck around. The Pennine Way hereabouts is pretty rough and sometimes extremely boggy. Past Greenriggs the landscape opened out attractively and I was soon on access land. Here you need to be careful as the route is not always obvious but the idea is to veer left. You are doing fine if you do this and meet a fence heading north. You are doing very fine if you meet the fence just where a yellow marker post reassures you you are still on the Pennine Way. It leads north from here again over very boggy ground. There are a couple of half hearted attempts to engineer short bridges across bits of this. At the highest point a ladder style crosses a wall and a short detour to the left bags the trig point on the top of Blenkinsopp Common – it’s a Tump if you are crazy enough to care.

From here the Pennine Way heads swiftly downhill before turning sharply right along a track for a bit then left along another to reach the A69. I too the last left about 250m too soon along the wrong track and hit the main road in slightly the wrong place which left me a bit confused but I quickly figured out what I had done and got back on track. This meant heading up by a wall along the side of the Haltwhistle Golf Course, ignoring a bunch of ladder styles for golfers to retrieve stray balls, until a sign sent me right across the edge of golf course itself, over a road, along a path in front of some houses, across a railway and up a riverbank to pass the ruins of Thirlwall Castle. From here to the road by the Walltown Quarry – where I had started yesterday – was about a kilometre up a nice grassy path past some sheep but pretty relentlessly uphill. My legs were getting rather tired now and I felt it. I followed the road down to the B6318 then a footpath across a sheepy field and by some woods past College Farm, where they like their horses – someone was practicing showjumping – back to the A69. After I crossed this, the rest of the walk was pounding tarmac, first two miles up another big hill then down it again to the attractive Featherstone Bridge. Then right and anolther mile and a half along the bank of the South Tyne, past Featherstone Castle and then a final slog up a final hill, past Hall Bank Head where something that did not sound friendly barked at me in the rapidly failing light on and to Featherstone Rowfoot where a friendly man with another very unfriendly dog – it really wanted to kill me but happily was on a lead – helped me locate the car park in what was now almost total darkness.

A little north of Elton by the roadside at the foot of Anthony Hill are some stone troughs, the Burycliffe Troughs,  with water in them fed by a spring reputed never to have run dry. As far as this point my route from Youlgreave this beautiful January day was the same as for 116. From here I went a short way down Cliff Road to where a footpath to the right led delightfully to Dale End. Juist south of here a phone box marks the start of the track down Gratton Dale. I headed down it. It was muddy and got muddier till I gratefully reached the beautiful , lonely spot which is the junction with Long Dale.

I turned right and followed the latter for about a mile to where a path off to the right took a diagonal line up the side of the dale and deposited me on the plateau above it. The fields here were empty in the cold weather but this is clearly cattle country where you can expect their company in warmer seasons. The field path turned into a track and deposited me on Weaddow  Lane. I walked up here a bit till another path on the right headed away by a little river and some woodland. More fields then down the hill again to Middleton and up Bradford Dale and so back to Youlgreave.

I drove to the car park at Porth-y-parc. This isn't big and I got the last space - there are skgns around strongly interdicting parking anywhere else hereabouts. I set off up the track north towarsd Parc Lodge Farm. Here the path by-passes the farm buildings on the right before crossing the river and entering a field on its left bank (inhabited today by a solitdary horse) and followingh the river up it then into some woods that lead uphill to join another of the plurality of paths that converge on the top of this pleasant and popular hill. I was soon on the summit which was windy and quite busy. Returning was an easy stroll down the Rholben ridge.

I parked just by the Whistle Inn (the pub near Whistle Hart on the 1:25,000 map). From here you can see a path leading diagonally up the hillside. I followed this, crossing a tarred track  at about 470m. Soon enough I came to a small windfarm – just two turbines but no doubt making plenty of power this very windy New Year’s Eve. From here a path leads off left toward the summit which it bypasses to the south. The summit area is very big and flat. Heaven only knew exactly where the precise summit was. There or thereabouts is good enough for me. I came down by descending more or less pathlessly to the north to pick up the tarred track I had passed going up. This would be unpleasant in the summer when the forest of ferns is in its luxuriant. In December  when they were all dead it was easy enough.

The free multi-story car park in Ebbw Vale seems an unlikely starting place for a country walk but that is where I started. Immediately outside a sign point across a bridge to Newtown. I followed it over the bridge, past the Baptist church then right then followed the yellow road south. (To the right down here was once the biggest steel works in Europe. It closed in 2002.) Soon the road starts to rise steeply up onto the hill. Just after it passes a couple of houses the map shows a path doubling back diagonally uphill. This path was not signposted but was easy enough to spot. I followed it up to the quarry. Here the way is very clear between some fenced off pasture on the right (home to some horses) and on the left what purports to be Britain’s highest golf course. It is an easy trudge from here to the summit trig point. I came back the same way. It is a rather bleak depressing place. With the potential, given a little tlc, to be a rather attractive hill, Mynydd Carn-y-Defn is, in its upper reaches utterly ruined by the scarring effect of wildly excessive activity by people on dirt bikes. It’s a real shame.