This is Noon Hill

Well actually you're looking at Winter Hill with its array of telecommunications masts. I was sitting on Noon Hill and its cairn is in the foreground. It's a very special place, and it's not just me that thinks so - looking at the map you will see the word 'Cairn' denoting a prehistoric tumulus on this site. In ancient times this became the burial ground for the ashes of three people one adult male and female and a child. They were carefully placed beneath a large food vessel in a stone cist. Around them were placed precious items - pottery, flint tools, arrowheads, scrapers and a knife. Other remains had been placed there too.

This was clearly a place of importance to these people and sitting there in the evening sunshine with no-one else in sight I could see why. Out to the north east the summit of Ingleborough rose above the haze, with Pendle before it, further west, still northerly I could just make out the shape of the Langdale Pikes, with Black Coombe skirting the sea on the west coast. Morcambe Bay, the Ribble estuary, Liverpool Bay all shone like pools of mecury in the distance. And then turning south - the mighty mountains of Snowdonia - I was seeing exactly what these people had seen thousands of years ago.

You'll rarely bump into anyone on Noon Hill it doesn't have the ease of access of Winter Hill or the attraction of the tower on Rivington Pike, or the huge cairns on Two Lads which all surround it - but it is by far the best place to enjoy the evening sun on the West Pennine Moors.

Tonight's run was a solo event, which gave me time to contemplate!