Long Walks - Yorkshire Three Peaks

 

This walk was yet another of Li Yang's ideas. The date for this has chopped and changed due to snowstorms, bad colds, diphtheria, measles,  the election of comedy heads of state in various countries and has been juggled with another Long walk intended as part of a reccy for Crook and Weardale Ramblers at Skipton, but extended over some rather cracking moorland edges so as to get back to where the cars are parked.

 

All of this is highly irrelevant, obviously and, to quote said comedy politicians when avoiding a difficult (i.e. embarrassing) question - ".... what is important..."  is that as well as the usual Diane and David, we also had Marie and Michael, but no LTD cos I thought  this was too far for him.

 Everybody in this group walks faster than me and is more cheerful, better looking, has more money and a enjoys wider selection of friends than even me or  Lucky The Dog. This is a tragedy, obviously.

I have some history with this particular walk, though,  having done it half a dozen times before, failed at least twice and, taken individually, according to my walks log, the total number of ascents of the three hills adds up to 101 times, not including searches in the 1980's which didn't quite get to the top of anything.

I expect that this not only shows a lack of imagination concerning which hill to climb, but also indicates that by now, I ought to know my way around the area, and it seems likely that this is the reason why the rest of the group seemed to think I was the leader, even though I was miles at the back most of the time. Maybe they just wanted somebody to blame if at some point we'd been forced to resort to a taxi. 

 I should point out, though, that navigating the Three Peaks route is very very easy, apart, maybe, from finding the right way off the top of Ingleborough in the fog, which, historically, is where many people go wrong. It's not surprising, really, because it is a bit confusing.

We had no problems at all , apart from some minor trips. The group battered their way around the route, braving fierce winds and stupidly low wind-chill factors, specially on Whernside, finishing in 10 hours and 40 minutes which is not a record of any kind, but is the quickest I could have done it anyway. I suspect that some of my companions could have been quite a bit quicker.

My last visit to this route was in July 1982, so it's a long time ago and, I have to say, that since then the walk has been Pennine-Way-I-fied. That is to say that it has been diverted around boggy bits, sloppy bits, and bits where the path turned into a deep and scary gully and it has also been signposted at most crucial points and, best, or worst of all, has been provided with a hard surface, mainly Lancashire mill slabs or made into a road, just a bit under width for a land rover. This is fairly hard on the feet and would have ruined LTD's delicate paws. (As I explained to him on my return to Pietowers. Luckily I was already covered for tetanus...)

Thus, it has been civilised and , as far as brainwork is concerned, it's easy. It's still a long way, though, and the contours add up to a lot of ascent, and descents, parts of which are tricky having been "improved" with boulders or cobbles in an apparent random and uneven distribution.
There's a tea van and a pub at Ribblehead, a barn selling tea and all kinds of scoff at Philpin Farm, quite close to the pub at Chapel-le-Dale.  My advice is that success may well depend on staying out of the pubs... 

Coming up in the Long Walks series, in early May, is a little trundle starting at Cracoe, heading into Skipton on the Dales High Way and returning via the moorland edges of Crookrise, Rylstone Fell and Cracoe Fell.  Just 20 miles, unless we get lost, in which case it might be 15 .... or.. er  25...  Lucky is not allowed on this one either because it's the Duke of Devonshire's open access land.