Lucky The Dog Does Buckden Pike

Plan A had been to go to the Lake District for it’s compacted contours but the weather forecast had thundery showers with hail and lightening. I have a certain distrust of lightening and LTD isn’t fond of thunder, so, we overslept and determined, from a detailed search of various databases, manual records, anecdotes and vague memories, that LTD had never been up Buckden Pike.
So, that’s where we went.

We went the long-way up – that is to say, the Roman Road also known as “The Rake”, the turn-off up to the pike, also known as “The Fork”, the squashy bit on the top aka “The Trowel” (yes, I know this doesn't quite work, and I’m open to suggestions to try to fit in a wheelbarrow and a spade)(which I always like to call a “spade”.)
The murky clouds of the morning cleared and it became sunny and quite draughty in a cool and breezy kind of way.

Buckden Pike summit was occupied by just two “senior” ramblers – senior meaning anybody older than me, so it’s a small but bijoux cohort. It was far too chilly here to consider sitting around damaging a chicken and tomato butty, so we progressed, quite quickly, past the WW2 Polish Air-accident memorial to a turn in the wall which provided shelter from the nither, a period of warm sunshine and a nice view. It was here that the chicken and tomato and mustard butty and a banana all came to grief. Nom nom.
Our two senior ramblers rambled past, followed by a semi-retired NHS worker from Lancaster, who was off to bag Great Whernside.

I caught her up a short time later as she tangled with the sloppy bogs created by some eco-dams and last night’s heavy rains. This provided many navigational problems and there was severe danger of wet socks. But we managed. She went off to Great Whernside and me and LTD descended to the Bluebell Hotel in Kettlewell for a shandy. Note for dog-owners – the Bluebell is very dog-friendly. Just sayin’.
To finish, we followed the Dales Way back to Buckden where the knipemobile was still parked.

We did 12 miles and about 2000 feet of ascent, which, really, for the purposes of TGO training was just not enough. The TGO challenge starts next week, and, whilst I’m getting progressively skinnier and a bit more racing-snakeish, I’m not specially confident about sticking to my planned route, which is fairly hard in places. However, I’m a right sneaky bugger when it comes to implementing routes and there are other options available if required. Or if I just can’t be arsed at the time.
My route also coincides substantially with JJ’s – probably as far as Rannoch, or even Carie campsite. And, we both have kilts innit?
More walkies quite soon………