Cronkley Fell - Spring Gentians - Bird´s Eye Primroses

The walk descriptioin to Cronkley Fell is in Paddy Dillon´s book "Walking in the North Pennines". The enclosures for the wild flowers are mentioned there. That´s why the walk up Cronkley Fell was planned for a long time. I parked in the small car park alongside the main road at Forest-in-Teesdale. The first part of the walk is on photo #2 you can see the climb up to Cronkley Fell on the right  of the photo. After I crossed the river the walk follows the Pennine Way for a short while but then branches off to the right. In the distance in photo #4 you can see Bleabeck Force where I walked to from High Force a few days earlier. The path is called the Green Trod. On photo #5 - looking down from halfway up - you can see why (If you zoom in on that photo you can still see the top of Bleabeck Force in the distance and on the other side of the Tees the quarry buildings). It was not a steep but a steady climb to the top of the fell where I passed the enclosures photo #6 and #7. It was early in the morning, dull and cool so I did not spot any flowers. A bit disappointed I continued past the enclosures towards my target: the end of the ridge with the view towards Falcon Clint across on the other side of the Tees. The walk across the open top of the fell is great and in the distance you can see Cow Green Reservoir, Great Dunn Fell and Cross Fell. I wanted to make a detour to White Force Waterfall (at the bottom of the map) but never managed to find any sign of a waterfall or even a small stream justifying its existence. When I reached my target, the view from the edge was really magnificent (marked on the left of the map) . You can clearly see the path along the edge of the Tees river on the other embankment which I did at the end of the holiday with the boulder fields next to the river.

I had a well deserved picnic enjoying the scenery in front when I heard someone greeting me from behind. He introduced himself as  the Head Game Keeper of the Raby Estate of the Earl of Strathmore from Middleton in Teesdale casually carrying a rifle across his shoulders. He explained that he was hunting stouts and weasels who take the eggs of the grouse. We had a very long, interesting conversation in which he showed me photos of nests of Curlews, Lapwings and Grouse; explaining the details about how to tell dead and live Heather apart, a lot of interesting details about grouse rearing and shooting and of course the weather and politics. 

On the return I made a detour to a small tarn. The trigg point was a good orientation (It is encircled on the map with the height of 544). The canadian geese at the tarn were really noisy and made me feel not so welcome there. When I went past the enclosures once again I fortunately met a group of walkers who pointed the spring gentians and the primroses out to me! I would have missed them otherwise! Spring gentians (Frühlings-Enzian) are only found in the whole of UK in Upper Teesdale and in western Ireland. In the Alps they are also a protected species. The Bird´s eye Primroses (Mehlprimel) are also very rare in the UK. Both species are growing here since the last ice age 10000 - 12000 years ago.

They definetly were the highlight of the walk.

The photos after the flower ones are from the descent. The lone white farm you can see in the distance on the last two photos is Widdy Bank Farm which I passed on the walk to Cauldron Snout a few days later.