Early Spring Walk on Brant Fell Common
The track onto Brant Fell Common runs uphill between drystone walls. We follow it, the sun on our backs, and skylark song dripping from a cloudless sky. This is the warm brief spring that slips itself in between winter weeks, and seems to arrive every year - a few windless, bright days that urge a rapid transition from thermals to thinner trousers and T-shirts. We want to get out while the sun shines, so we’re off on a short evening jaunt to the top of Winder.
Just twenty minutes in, we are both a little short of breath, and our dog is panting. The sun feels so hot we could easily have worn shorts and still been warm. I stop regularly. There’s no need to rush - this isn’t a walk of endurance, it’s a chance to relax. Looking west, the view stretches over the walled-in inbye fields of farms which have been linked with the common for centuries. I squint to count the arches in the stone viaduct a couple of miles away (I count ten), notice the high lorries that trace the shape of the M6 through the Tebay valley, and rest my gaze on the ranks of Lake District hills that fade into the distance. It’s incredibly still, the quiet interrupted only by the occasional bug buzzing past, and the trickling song of skylarks that flutter above our heads.
Brant Fell Common, Yorkshire Dales. Image by Rob Fraser. Walking up Winder with a dog on a lead during the start of lambing.
Overlooking us, and dominating this whole landscape, are the wide backs and shoulders of the Howgills that spread to the north – Arant Haw, Brown Head, Force Brow. These high, rounded hills are looking velvety today, a yellowish pale. Back in December, there were days when the hills were rolling white with snow, and it won’t be long until they are transformed again, first back to white with the last shakes of winter, and then to vibrant green with summer’s grasses and bracken.
We’ve passed a small parcel of sheep, Rough Fells and Swaledales, which look at us with curiosity. Otherwise, we feel quite alone. But before long, we meet a group of people coming down from Winder, light footed, and dressed in T-shirts and shorts. At the top of Winder, we spot a cyclist coming down the path from Arant Haw (known locally as Higher Winder) and in just a few minutes he’s arrived at the trig point, where we’re standing. He’s from Sedbergh, and is revelling in the new fun and freedom of having an electric mountain bike. On a day like this, it’s hard to imagine many better places to head out for a ride.
Brant Fell Common, Yorkshire Dales. Image by Rob Fraser. Cyclist heading up to Arant Haw from Winder
I wander down from the top of Winder to see what I can see over to the east. The land falls away steeply into a gully which is cut through by a stream and holds patches of gorse. The map tells me I’m looking across to Soolbank and the high point behind it, Crook. Beyond, the land dips and then rises to the wide expanse of Baugh Fell, with the valley of Garsdale below it. We scan the land in all directions, and with our map spread out, we note the names of the valleys and the tops. We recall places we’ve been to, and plan outings to places we don’t yet know. Being up high is the best place to start planning another walk!
Directly below us in Sedbergh, roofs and windows glint in the sunshine. We turn and head back downhill, facing the brightness of the setting sun and walking over ground that’s much boggier. In wide puddles, tiny tadpoles are beginning to wiggle inside the frogspawn that spreads like jelly across the surface of the water.
It feels like an enormous privilege to have the time and the ability to be out here enjoy the freshness of the air, the song of skylarks, and the ability to see for miles, and miles, and miles. We let the wide open space ease out the creases of a troubled week, and when we come off the hill, a few hours after we started our walk, we feel completely refreshed - but not without added curiosity about what more we will find across Brant Fell Common as the seasons pass and we head up here both on our own, and with commoners and others who know it better and can tell us more about its natural and cultural histories, and visions for its future.
Brant Fell Common, Yorkshire Dales. Image by Rob Fraser. Walking off the fells in golden afternoon light.