Walking Yorkshire : Great Shunner Fell, Swaledale & Muker This was supposed to be Tan Hill as well, but my foot (see below) was giving me some gip so I cut the walk short. I got up early, 5am, and got out on the road soon after, it's a fair drive to Muker and I wanted an early start to what was planned as a long day's hike. As I drove towards Skipton I was rewarded with this beautiful view of the sun rising over Chelker reservoir. The roads were alive with wildlife, many different types of bird, rabbits and as I got further up into the Dales, a great shame as I have never seen one of these alive in the wild, a large badger lying dead in the road. I arrived in Muker at 7am, the sun was out, so I lathered myself in sun cream so as not to get burned, ten minutes later the rain had washed all the sun cream off again. A rainbow over Usha Gap. Another ten minutes on, I'm soaking, these cows don't even look damp. These are the vagaries of Yorkshire weather, whilst it's pissing down in Muker, the sun shines on Thwaite. This is where I'm heading, yes that's right, the one shrouded in mist. Great Shunner Fell is on the Pennine Way, I remember this hill from my walking as a teenager, the horror of endless Scout swallowing bogs has been replaced by well made paths and pleasent walking. An unusual tall cairn on the flank of Great Shunner Fell with Swaledale in the morning haze behind. I've walked up in sunshine with a breeze, albeit the sort of breeze that if it were winter would be driving piercing icy pain into your ears and making your fillings ache. Just short of the summit though, the mist is down, Golden Plovers are flying overhead making their strange, mournful song, it's cold and damp, I appear to have stepped into a Bram Stoker novel. This is better, I've stopped for a picnic near Thwaite, Swaledale looks nice in the dappled sunshine. The view across Swaledale to Swinner Gill. Waterfall on East Gill, I've been sitting here for a while pondering whether my foot is going to last the walk to Tan Hill and back, and with heavy heart, I decide it won't, so I amble back down Swaledale to the car. Swaledale. The bin in the foreground isn't a rubbish bin, it's a feeding station for game birds. Keepers in the area are reporting that the Grouse have been decimated by a virus, indeed, in my time on the moors this morning I have only seen a single Grouse, this bodes badly for the shooting season due to start in under two weeks. Just to add to my frustration today, I'm not supposed to be here at Swallow Hole, I'm supposed to be walking in the other direction to Beldi Hill, bugger it, that's added another mile I didn't need to walk. In the abandoned lead mines at Fair Yew End. Waterfalls on Swinner Gill at Fair Yew End. I spotted movement in the grass, looked down and there was the bane of gardeners and groundsmen everywhere, a mole. They shift an impressive amount of earth for such a tiny creature. The sort of picture of which Mrs YS shakes her head in amused despair, "Why ?" she says. "It sort of looked like a one eyed, one toothed angry old man", I reply, "Ok" she says, moving in the general direction of away. Back in Muker, I revisited a haunt of my youth, the Farmers Arms, you can read about my previous exploits in this establishment here. It was a nice walk, a shame that my foot wouldn't let me go any further, I need to get it right soon or I'll have to put off my 3 Peaks attempt for another year. The walk was about 16 miles, and would have been a little shorter had I payed more attention to the map.