Great Shunner Fell and Lovely Seat

This is not a walk for the feint-hearted. 

A potentially very boggy 10 / 11 mile circular walk from Thwaite in Swaledale, across the top of the Pennines to reach the summit of Great Shunner Fell (716m), its neighbour Little Shunner Fell (653m) and the oddly named Lovely Seat (675m). Odd, because I expect it to be very mucky indeed.

The first 3.5 miles are on the Pennine Way, climbing steadily up to the summit of Great Shunner Fell (716m) from Thwaite which is about 280m above sea level. The Pennine Way has the potential to be moist and boggy, but some of this section, it is understood, has been flagged.

Great Shunner Fell is the third highest mountain in the Yorkshire Dales, and the highest point in Wensleydale. In clear weather the summit affords views of Wensleydale to the south,Ribblesdale to the south west and Swaledale to the north, as well as views into Cumbria and County Durham beyond the A66.

The Pennine Way passes over its summit, on the way from Hawes to Keld. The popularity of this route had eroded vegetation from a strip 70 m wide across the moor, which has been alleviated since 1996 by the construction of a path made of flagstones.

The summit holds a cross-shaped windbreak of which the trig point has been built into the northern 'arm'.

Great Sleddale Beck, which becomes the River Swale after its confluence with Birkdale Beck has its sources on the northern slopes of Great Shunner Fell, while the southern slopes drain into the River Ure and Wensleydale.

The dominating rock type in the area is limestone, but milstone grit forms outcrops extensively on Great Shunner Fell, and coal seams have also been worked on its slopes.

Great Shunner Fell is the most southerly remaining outpost in Britain for the yellow marsh saxifrage, saxifragia hirculus.

After Great Shunner Fell, expect conditions to deteriorate! This walk is off piste for much of the rest of the day, as we follow a fence-line along the watershed, to Little Shunner Fell. With the map showing words like (peat) 'hags' and 'Grimy Gutter Hags' expect lots of very squidgy terrain.

We follow the winding fence-line to eventually cross the Buttertubs road at the top of the climb from either Swaledale or Wensleydale. At this point, if conditions are poor, we could return on the road direct to Thwaite, but the intention is to continue, after crossing the road, to follow the fence-line across similar terrain, up 150m of ascent, to the summit of Lovely Seat.

Lovely Seat was originally known as Lunasett until being misnamed by map makers some time in the twentieth century. It reaches a height of 675 metres (2,215 feet). It is part of the high ground which separates Wensleydale from Swaledale.  The name Lunasett derives from the Norse dialect moon pasture.

The summit is adorned by a fair-sized cairn and a stone-built chair, and gives good views of the Yorkshire Three Peaks to the south. 300 metres west of the summit are a series of stone cairns which are clearly visible on the skyline when the fell is viewed from a distance.

From Lovely Seat, we will follow the same fence-line for about another 2km / 1.5 miles until we can head north to pick off one of the tributaries to Greenseat Beck where we eventually pick up a bridlepath back to Thwaite.