The high fell country the ring road crosses between the Greymount moors and the drop into the vale. Open tops, a stony ford, a cairnfield older than the road, and the Crossway, the only kept hearth for a day's walk in any direction.
Between the mountains and the vale the road crosses country that belongs to neither, open fells of cropped turf and standing stone where the wind never entirely stops. The Thalrun paved their way across it and set their waymarks, but the fells were old before the road came. A field of grey cairns stands beside the paving with no name on any mound, and the road swings gently to avoid the two largest, which was the builders’ choice and speaks well of them.
At the western end sits the Crossway, a drovers’ inn reopened by a returner family, slate-roofed, reglazed, and warm. Enid Longmile keeps it, feeds travelers from the pot, and offers the loft free while the beds outnumber the guests, which they still do. Her signpost carries boards for Greyhearth, the Ford, and Willowdale. The fourth board has been taken down and planed clean, waiting for somewhere worth painting on it.
East of the inn the road crosses a quick stream at a paved ford and climbs to the highest ground between the mountains and the sea, where the whole ring of the country shows at once. Along the northern skyline runs an unbroken line of old pinewood that comes down to the road’s ditch and stops dead, a forest holding a border no one drew for it. Travelers keep to their side. So far, so does the forest.
