Our 3 Peak weekend
Well it finally arrived, after slightly less training than we had intended!
The executive summary is that, due to flu, four of us made the journey to Yorkshire and despite some horrible weather two of us (Martin and myself), made it all the way round the 3 Peaks in approximatly 10 hours and 40 mins! Despite pulling a muscle on the tricky first ascent, Tim made it all the way to the end of the second mountain before having to turn back and Nikolay went with him to give him a hand home.
Below are some photos of our trek. Note how they get more blurred and infrequent as the trek progresses and I get colder!
Even leaving at 3pm didn't help much with the Bank Holiday Friday traffic.
Arriving 6 hours later in Yorkshire, the first stop was the local pub to discuss tactics and drink local ale.
Finishing up at the pub, we returned to our Bed and Breakfast to prepare for our early start tomorrow. In my tired state, their fireplace confused me a little!
Tim and Nikolay discussing the walk over breakfast at 5.30am in the conservatory. The plant above our heads is an actual grape vine!
If you are ever in North Yorkshire and looking for a place to stay, the Pines country house was a lovely place.
In the car park we could no longer fool ourselves that it was "a passing shower" and put on waterproofs.
The hill in the distance is Pen-y-ghent, the first, closest and smallest of our hills...
(left to right) The four of us, Tim, Martin, Nikolay and myself (Seb), standing outside the Pen-y-ghent cafe, the traditional starting point.
We finally set off on our trek at 06:49am.
Wandering through the low lying woodlands of the valley.
Pen-y-ghent rising up in the distance. By this point we had already gone the wrong way and had to turn around 3 times!
Quick break at the start of the climb. By this point I think we were all starting to worry how high it was.
Getting higher...
We arrived at the top at 08:15am. In the background of the picture is the GPS trig point. The lack of pictures is due to a tricky bit of scrambling which required both hands!
Having made it down from the hill, we start the long trek towards our next mountain many miles away.
Still walking... you can still make out Pen-y-ghent to the left of Tim.
Approaching the lower parts of Whernside. The bridge on the left is apparently over a century old.
The Yorkshire Dales are a beautiful place. We passed quite a few waterfalls on the lower slopes.
As we made our way up Whernside we started to enter the cloud layer and the weather changed drastically. The winds picked up and it started to rain heavily.
Making our way up the North ridge of Whernside. It was hailing at this point!
We arrive at the top at 01:01pm. Note my hand has started to go red from the sharp rain and wind.
On our way back down.
The rocks, despite looking fairly benign, were incredibly slippy at this point. This made it quite tricky with the wind.
We past a lot of interesting people on our walk. These ones appeared to either be the army, or a group in fancy dress.
Heading to the next hill, a little bit damp. Tim unfortunately had to stop at this point and Nikolay left with him to help him home.
Limestone pavements!
This is not an artistic blur! Approaching the lower slope of Ingleborough we faced the dreaded cloud layer again.
The start of Ingleborough looked misleadingly easy and even had stairs!
Martin on his way up.
Looking down over a tricky slippy bit.
Again, not many photos as we had to concentrate on the climb. I was also starting to worry about my camera due to the wetness.
The top of Ingleborough was a complete whiteout, but we eventually managed to find the trig point 03:45pm.
The long walk back.
Apparently it's the last 30mins of a plane trip that are the hardest for smokers. In the same way, it was these last few miles I found the hardest. It seemed like the moorland was going on forever.
Finally we made it back to the Cafe at 05:28pm after over 10.5 hours of continuous walking! I actually really enjoyed the day and will definitely come back to the beautiful Yorkshire Dales in the future, but hopefully on a dry warm day!