A Spot of Yorkshire Three Peak Challenging

SPOILERS. This is a long one.

Eleven months ago, a few friends and I created a Facebook group called ‘The Walking And Talking Society’ – a page where we would organise group walks through the countryside and up hills. Our first event was an off-the-cuff trip to the Yorkshire Dales to take part in the Yorkshire Three Peak Challenge – a 24 mile circular hike up Pen-y-ghent, Whernside and Ingleborough. To say it ended poorly would be an understatement.

We had started early that day, but wasted time taking photos and complaining. We also spent about an hour at a pub drinking beer. The result: all those people doing it properly overtook us, and the weather caught up with us. We gave up after Whernside and went home, shivering, dripping, and changed men.

In eleven months, T.W.A.T.S. have visited Beeston Castle, Mam Tor and conquered Scafell Pike. It was time to do the Yorkshire Three Peak Challenge – properly. Brendan discovered the British Heart Foundation was running a challenge, so he and I signed up and started fundraising. The fact we were doing it for charity would make us more determined to finish this time.

7^th July, 2018. Horton in Ribblesdale, North Yorkshire, England. Brendan and I arrived at the start line at 6am. Today, rain would not be an issue (however, scarred from last year’s misery, I packed a raincoat JUST IN CASE). The UK is experiencing one of its driest, warmest summers in years. Temperatures were forecast to reach 25℃ and skies looked likely to remain clear. The sun spray in Brendan’s bag was as essential as the many bottles of water packed.

We entered the BHF tent and picked up our charity t-shirts and numbers. Now we looked official. Our numbers had a barcode which would be scanned to tell the time we started, and there would be checkpoints along the hike to make sure we weren’t taking shortcuts. Groups of people were waiting to be set off at the start-line – the organisers were sending people on their way in groups of about 20, so as not to cause too much disturbance in the village. Brendan and I cheekily wormed our way right to the front – we needed to start as soon as possible – the small matter of the World Cup quarter-final between England and Sweden started at 4pm. We wanted to get this hike done in under 10 hours.

At 6:15, we were released. On previous T.W.A.T.S. outings, it’s just been a few mates on their own in the middle of nowhere. Today we were part of a 560-strong squad; all dressed in red BHF t-shirts, alongside casual walkers, runners, and hikers representing Macmillan and other charities. I have to say, being part of a massive group is much more fun.

As this was a charity event, there were obviously people here older and/or less fit than us. For the first time in T.W.A.T.S. history, we were actually OVERTAKING people!  A wry smile hit my face when we walked past those who were tiring already on the way up Pen-y-ghent; it’s only gonna get worse! Looking behind us, it was cool to see the path full of people, all the way back to Horton; so many people were out this morning.

The weather was beautiful, but even before the clock hit 7am, the rays hitting our faces were hot. This point of the hike takes you in an easterly direction, meaning the rising sun was blinding us. I was dripping. Particularly towards the top of Pen-y-ghent when you are required to clamber up a steep incline. Brendan and I (being the knobheads we are) kept straying off the main path to climb past slower walkers. I’m sure they enjoyed that.

We hoped to ascend Pen-y-ghent in around 55 minutes, but in true T.W.A.T.S. fashion we failed. But not by much! At 7:25, we hit the summit. In fairness, Pen-y-ghent is not a difficult hike. Fun, though!

For the first time on a T.W.A.T.S. event, we were actually able to take in the views from the summit. Usually we are shrouded in cloud and/or rain. The rising sun was casting a golden light upon the Dales, and it was nice to have a little sit down and look. But soon enough, we were off again, eager to finish before 4pm!

The path down dipped into the shadow being cast by Pen-y-ghent itself and the cool shade was welcome. But it was short-lived. What lay ahead was a near-8 mile trek across the Dales to the Ribblehead Viaduct, on which we could probably count the number of trees you pass on one hand. There were still no clouds in the sky. The sun cream was topped up.

Rain hadn’t fallen in weeks and you could tell. It was more like walking through Spanish countryside than North Yorkshire. The ground was parched and dusty; the grass turned golden. On a positive note, the marshy muddy points of the trail that hampered last year were completely gone. However, it was a shame when we reached a little brook called Coppy Gill.

This year it was almost bone dry. The same could be said for a larger stream called Brow Gill Beck, which was so dry I walked through it as if it were a puddle.

After over 3 hours in direct sunshine, Brendan started to develop symptoms of insanity and began attacking thistles. I started to accept that we were probably going to miss the England game.

We were necking our water reserves already, but thankfully, BHF provided watering stations along the way at the check-in points. We passed two check-in points before we reached Ribblehead – that’s how long the walk is! It’s not a trying trek at all, just long. The scenery is beautiful and the air is quiet, devoid of man-made sound.

The stunning Ribblehead Viaduct is obviously a tourist attraction, and so here we found a crowd of parked cars and people. Also present was a burger van, that also sold ice cream. Very tempting. But at this stage last year we stopped off in the nearby Station Inn and didn’t leave for over an hour. Brendan was keen to not repeat past mistakes, so we ignored the pub and the burger van. We wandered off the Yorkshire Three Peak track ever so slightly and settled underneath the arches of the viaduct for our butty break.

Refuelled, we ventured out from the shade into the sunshine. It was nearly 11am, and so the sun was pretty high in the sky. I took one final look back at the viaduct before we began our near-4 mile horseshoe-shaped trail up to Yorkshire’s highest point.

Whernside. A name synonymous with misery for The Walking And Talking Society. It conjures memories of freezing, horizontal rain – but not today. Today it was hot, without a breath of wind. The temperature was in the mid-20s now and on this trail there is nowhere to hide. I remember last year trying to hide behind some reeds away from the horizontal rain – but this year’s menace was beating down from directly above. I was racing through my water reserves – drinking little and often and splashing it on my head. And now I was starting to feel fatigued. My heavy bag had done its damage – my shoulders were now killing. Usually on our T.W.A.T.S. outings, I’m the one out front. Not today. Annoyingly, Brendan seemed absolutely fine and I was definitely holding him up.

(Brendan’s got stile – search #BrendansGotStile on Instagram – it’s a thing, you know)

As we climbed higher, I genuinely wondered whether I preferred last year’s Whernside climb. Baking heat or chilling saturation? At least we could see the sights this year. I remember seeing this ghostly pool appear from under the clouds last year and actually feared I might slip and plunge all the way to my death in it… This year I was just surprised it hadn’t dried up.

On a normal day, Whernside is actually a very easy ascent from the anti-clockwise direction. It’s just a long, gradual climb. There was still no wind to be found as we walked along the ridge towards the cairn, but the heavens had delivered us some clouds which occasionally wandered in front of the sun. At around 12:30, we reached the summit and I collapsed on the grass, aching all over.

I had my photo with the cairn and we were off again. The descent was horrible. It’s steep in places and we were stuck behind much slower walkers, some obviously terrified of heights. With every step down, my foot would slip forward in my shoe, crushing my two little toes – and every now and then I would stub them on a rock for good measure. It’s my own fault – these shoes were very worn – they’d taken me around Iceland and up Scafell Pike. The Yorkshire Three Peak Challenge would finally kill them off. I was in pain and I was tired, and I was getting annoyed with the people in front continually apologising for holding everyone up. I was thinking “I don’t care – shut up or move over”. Brendan was also annoying me as he was descending with speed and grace like a mountain goat.

After the steep rocky slope, you reach a section of stone steps, where each step is just too big to be comfortable. It kills your knees. When I stood still to catch my breath, my calf muscles would shake uncontrollably.

After about an hour, we made it to gloriously flat tarmacked ground. It’s so underrated. I was done. The prospect of finding a pub, drinking a pint and settling down to watch the World Cup Quarter-Final was incredibly enticing. Brendan kept saying no, but I kept persuading.

We made it to checkpoint 5 at Philpin Farm and mercifully, there was a snack bar.

I bought an ice cream and sat down to take the last sandwich out of my bag – and found the reason behind my bag being so heavy. Days before I had stashed a 1.5litre bottle of water at the bottom and I’d completely forgotten about it. I was partly happy to have a new resource of still cool water, but mostly annoyed that I’d been lugging it around all day.

I was sat down for a good 15 minutes. Then I stood up, and from nowhere I developed a cramp-like pain in my left foot, under the arch and around the ball. I also started to feel a bit queasy from my sandwich. If Brendan hadn’t been there, and I wasn’t walking for charity, I would have called it quits right there. Hands down. I’d have happily joined the many people giving up and asking where the minibus back to Horton was.

BUT HEY HO. Brendan led the way to Peak 3 – Ingleborough. And I limped along behind. It was 2:25pm.

I was very thankful for the long and steady incline. The first section of Ingleborough is strewn with white boulders and makes you feel like you’re walking across the moon. We walked passed this giant hole and I wondered if Brendan noticed if I just disappeared into it for a few hours’ kip.

I kept looking into the distance towards Ingleborough, trying to see where the path to the top would take us. There seemed to be no fault line in the ridge, and I was sure we wouldn’t end up just getting to the base of a cliff and getting on our hands and knees.

I was wrong. My heart sank. I just didn’t have the energy to do this. There were relatively large groups of people at the bottom of the stair who had obviously decided this was the final straw. I really wanted to join them – especially as some had wirelesses and were listening to England vs Sweden. But guess what. Billy Goat Brendan just powered on.

I reckon I would have loved the Ingleborough staircase if I hadn’t been trekking for 9 hours already in baking sunshine. Progress was slow because every person climbing was knackered. There were few places large enough to stop and rest – if you stopped, you were usually in the way of tired, irritated co-walkers. Some rocks were guarded by little nettles so you had to watch where you put your hands. The views were brilliant but I didn’t give a shit. I just wanted to be up and off this mountain now.

The best thing about getting to the top of that staircase was the knowledge that we really weren’t far away from the summit. What followed was another relatively steady incline along the ridge. Obviously it was rockier up here, which was causing my foot more issues.

We reached a fork in the road. The left route took us back to Horton. The right route would take us to the summit in 5 minutes. There were BHF personnel to spur us on, and also tell us that England were 1-0 up. Go ‘ed, Harry Maguire.

Up we went, passing happy descenders going the other way. The path basically disappeared, replaced by a plateau of stones – absolute nightmare if you are trying to walk on the side of your foot to avoid pain. In the centre, was the cairn.

At 4pm, we reached the third summit. The guy taking our numbers at the top told us some bloke had completed the whole walk in just over 6 hours. Arsehole. We sat down in the cairn, out of the sun, and chilled for a bit. We had heard it looked like the moon up on Ingleborough…

Three peaks done, it was time to walk 4 miles back to the start. It was a nice, easy, gradual descent, but it was long. My foot was next to useless and my right foot was now starting to feel the same. Our destination was in sight but my progress was so slow that it didn’t seem to be getting closer. Every time I went over a small ridge, I would be disappointed that we still had so far to go. However, at one point I did get a phone signal and I was able to watch the MotD reaction to England’s 2-0 win over Sweden.

It took us 2 hours. In comparison, that doesn’t seem like a lot, but this was two hours of limping in a straight line. If it was 2 hours of winding all over the Dales, you’d at least have something different to look at as you went. But this was 2 hours of watching your destination get closer at a snail’s pace. It’s like when you chase something in a dream and it just gets further away. I. Was. Done.

At 6:10pm, we arrived back in Horton. There was a chance that, if we ran, we’d make it to the start/finish line in under 12 hours. But that was honestly impossible. I was ambling like a wounded tortoise. Both of my feet were in agony.

Brendan went live on Facebook as an organiser donned us both with medals. We crossed the line with a time of 12:02:55. And I collapsed on the grass.

I got back to my screaming feet and got a burger from the BBQ. Brendan and I both wanted a coke or something cold and fizzy. Unfortunately, they had run out. But they could offer us bottled water, not cooled. After 12 hours of drinking nothing but warm water, we were alright.

The walk to the pub was torture. I was limping so heavily, I was embarrassed. I looked like an idiot. The plan had been to have a celebratory pint, but neither of us felt like it. We were so broken. Brendan’s knees were gone, my feet were ruined and we had horrific cases of chub rub. I was bleeding. We just wanted to go home. I couldn’t finish my Fosters’.

We posed for an obligatory photo with our medals and got the hell out of there. I stuck my car in cruise control and cruised all the way home so I didn’t have to use the pedals, thinking “I’ll bloody sleep tonight.”

Yorkshire Three Peaks? Completed it mate.

 

Hi. Still here? That’s commendable. I reward you with this: