Nine Standards Rigg - Yorkshire Dales walk

The Nine Standards are a line of cairns, all of different shapes and approximately line up north to south on a ridge of the Pennines that once marked the old Westmoreland and North Ridings of Yorkshire border. Having said that, nobody knows the real reason why they were built in the first place. Anyway it's a wide open and airy spot 2,132ft up in the Pennines. Much of this walk is actually in Cumbria, but the Nine Standards Rigg itself is on the very edge of the Yorkshire Dales.
I started my walk from Kirkby Stephen, where you head east away from the market place, cross the River Eden by 'Franks Bridge' and up to the small settlement of Hartley. From there you swing south on the road and then sharp left up the hill when you reach the entrance to a quarry, which is still being worked. The next mile or so is simply following this fell road upwards, little used as it only serves the quarry and a single farm. Bear left onto an obvious track where the road ends. Now it's simply a case of following this track for about a mile until you come to a signpost pointing left and uphill which reads 'direct route to Nine Standards Rigg'. The route follows Faraday Gill for a while but the onward route is obvious as you can see the nine standards up the hill before you. This part of the route was very boggy and needed some careful footing in a few places. Anyway, you reach the stones and there you are, enjoy the oddness of each pile, the tallest ones are maybe around 10ft tall. Two of these have little shelves sticking out enough for you to sit on and rest a while. For my return path it was back the way I came. The walk book I was using suggesting a possible loop around the boggy top to join the coast to coast path further down. This however, meant trying to find your way over boggy ground with no visible footpath. The highest point of this ridge by the way, isn't at the nine standards at all, it's just a little way south, the trigg point being visible from the stones.
Filmed in April 2024.