Leaving Gayle behind, we climb up a steep and stony road
above the beck until we are soon above the level of green pasturage.
The stone walls still cover the hillsides with a net of very large
mesh, but the sheep find more bent than grass, and the ground is often
exceedingly steep. Higher still climbs this venturesome road, until all
around us is a vast tumble of gaunt brown fells, divided by ravines
whose sides are scarred with runnels of water, which have exposed the
rocks and left miniature screes down below. At a height of nearly 1,600
feet there is a gate, where we will turn away from the road that goes
on past Dodd Fell into Langstrothdale, and instead climb a smooth grass
track sprinkled with half-buried rocks until we have reached the summit
of Wether Fell, 400 feet higher. There is a scanty growth of ling upon
the top of this height, but the hills that lie about on every side are
browny-green or of an ochre colour, and there is little of the purple
one sees in the Cleveland Hills.
The cultivated level of Wensleydale is quite hidden from view, so that
we look over a vast panorama of mountains extending in the west as far
as the blue fells of Lakeland.
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