A bright frosty morning greeted us when we rose early to break camp before any one came along the route

High Force to Dufton about 15 miles
A bright frosty morning greeted us when we rose early to break camp before any one came along the route. We should not really have pitched where we did. By eight o’ clock we were on our way along the banks of the Tees again. The four lads jogging the route went past us near Langdon Beck, this is easy walking except for negotiating the rock falls about a mile short of Caldron Snout.
The climb up beside the waterfall was magnificent the water crashed and roared just a few feet away as we scrambled up the steep rocky gorge, no easy task with a large pack. Once at the top, the dam of Cow Green hides the reservoir, the Tees at this point runs through a pipe, being the outlet of the reservoir sluice We called at Birkdale Farm to have our water bottles filled, the farmers wife suggested we help ourselves from the tap in the outhouse, but the Collie tied up in there had other ideas about that,
Resting for lunch beyond Birkdale Farms we were passed by the lone walker from Lunedale (seen yesterday) this time accompanied by an elderly gent, and also two others, one of which we were to meet later on Great Dunn Fell, While trudging through one of the many peat haggs on the route down to the Maize Beck I found a stone arrow head, the peat had been eroded from around it and it was more or less fully uncovered, It’s strange to think that it was last handled about ten thousand years ago.
After a long rest in the sun we forded the Maize and walked on to High Cup, a truly spectacular sight, a deep crag rimmed glacial valley dropping away abruptly from the flat moor. The weather was perfect for our visit, the late sun casting shadows and highlighting the crags.
The original plan was to camp near High Cup, this we could have done as fine grassy shelves are to be found above the North West side, but as we had started the day early we had plenty of time to walk on down to Dufton. This we did and pitched camp at Dufton Manor Farm. Later we wandered over to the Pub ,here we met the lone walker (from Jersey). encountered earlier, and two lads from Rotheram that had passed us near Langdon Beck earlier that day.


	Dufton Next...............a problem day