Yorkshire Dales weekend 2017 (5)

Day 5 - Janet's Foss and Malham Cove

A shortish walk was on the agenda for Monday morning, prior to us all heading home. Nigel had already gone back to Huddersfield, so it was just 10 of us who drove over to Malham.

There was a slight hiccup at the start of the route, which caused us to get temporarily stuck behind a busful of foreign students. We waited patiently behind them as, one by one, they went through a number of kissing gates, before we decided to turn on the afterburners and shoot past them as they delicately tried to avoid the puddles in their designer footwear.

First stop was the Janet's Foss waterfall:

The original plan had been to head from there to Gordale Scar, another (higher) waterfall, but we were a little late starting and decided - all bar Gordon and Stewart - to bypass this and head straight for the famous Malham Cove.

The walk over gave us grand views of the multitude of dry stone walls:

We arrived at the top of Malham Cove and walked over what seemed like a garden of large stepping stones:

Then it was down the steps at the other side:

When we got to the bottom, we took in the spectacular views of the structure:

Amazingly, there were some rock climbers scaling the sheer wall:

The view when we were walking away:

A very pleasant morning - and the stats were:

Just time for a quick snack at the local cafe - no pubs today - then we all headed home. Great holiday. Here's to next year - possibly on Arran.

Yorkshire Dales weekend 2017 (4)

Day 4 - Great Whernside

Sunday's plan was to climb up Great Whernside and round back to Starbotton and then Kettlewell. It looked like being the toughest climb of the weekend - and so it turned out.

The Dales are covered in what we would call dry stane dykes which have to be crossed over on stiles or through narrow gaps:

Up we went, arriving at a Scout hostel and a small chapel which somebody said was the highest in England:

There was a short, sharp climb from there and we all took a rest on the rocks above:

By now, we were checking the altitude on our phone apps. How much further, daddy? We spied some rocks on what we thought was the top, but when we got there we found out it was another false summit. We ploughed on with occasional rest stops:

Finally, the cairn at the summit:

From there, it was along the top, down, round and finally down again to the Fox and Hounds in Starbotton for a well-earned pint before completing the final 2 miles back to Kettlewell, this time on the opposite side of the river from the Dales Way.

The day's stats were:

For dinner that evening we chose Kettlewell's 3rd pub - the King's Head. It's a bit of a gastro pub and we had a super meal there.

Yorkshire Dales weekend 2017 (3)

Day 3 - Kettlewell - Buckden return

It was Saturday and Ken gave us a bit of a breather with a walk along the valley floor, albeit with a short sharp upwards loop at the mid-point before and after lunch.

We passed some interesting looking buildings along the way:

The Dales Way basically followed the river:

Eventually we reached the George, just before it opened at noon. Requests for coffees prior to this time were met with refusal, so we opted for Gordon's and Stewart's drams instead:

After this we took a semi-circular route up, round and back down to lunch at the lovely White Lion Inn in Cray, where we had the best lunch of the weekend and definitely the best beer - Buckden Pike, brewed by Yorkshire Dales of Leyburn.

After lunch we marched back and soon arrived at Buckden, where Ken's plan had been that we would all catch the bus back to Kettlewell, which was a little less than 4 miles away along the Dales Way we had already walked along. However, the majority thought they would like to walk back, so it was just Ken, Nigel, Gordon and I that took the bus back for an early bath and an opportunity to listen to the afternoon football results coming in.

My phone battery failed again, but not before we were virtually at Buckden, the planned end of the route:

So those of us that caught the bus did about 15 kms, whilst the rest did over 20 kms.

We had an early start planned for Saturday night's entertainment - Ken had booked us a mini-bus to take us all to the lovely little town of Grassington. We had a pit stop on the way at the Fountaine Inn. When we eventually got to Grassington, we discovered it was 1940's weekend. There was a troupe of travelling re-enacters all dressed in military and 1940's gear. We had spotted what we thought was an old Hurricane flying up and down the valley, but it was in fact a Sptifire and it was now located in the town square:

We had beers in the Foresters Arms, where the locals had entered in to the spirit of things and had dressed up accordingly - girls with silk stockings, complete with drawn-on seam, and the men in what looked like zoot suits. There was then a not entirely genuine 1940's karaoke:

What a great atmosphere! We were hungry boys by now, but still a little sad to leave the pub and head to Grassington House for an excellent dinner:

Yorkshire Dales weekend 2017 (2)

Day 2 Kettlewell - Litton - Arncliffe - Kettlewell

Ken's plan for today was for us to leave Upper Wharfdale and walk over the hill to Littondale. It was to be the first test of our legs, lungs and equipment. Several "photo opportunities" were required - even our leader seems to be drawing breath here - or was he just open-mouthed at the view?:

It wasn't too tough really and soon we were on the plateau on the march to the trig point, where we gathered for our first team photo:

The walk down the other side was pretty steep but we made it to the Queens Arms in Litton about lunchtime. It was a fairly brief stop as we had planned to walk along the riverside to the next village (Arncliffe) for another refreshment before tackling the hike back over the hill to Kettlewell.

Wet feet were the order of the day as we got near the Falcon Inn, with underground springs flooding our path:

The Falcon Inn was the original Woolpack, as seen in the TV series Emmerdale:

Another beer there plus a quick bite and then we were off further along the valley floor, heading towards a lower part of the ridge to climb. First we had to get across the river:

The lesser height of the ridge further down Littondale made the climb fairly comfortable, but there were one or two technical bits on the way down. Unfortunately, the battery on my phone failed and so I don't have full Strava stats for the walk, which had originally been estimated by Ken at 10-12 miles. Stewart's fitbit, however, calculated the distance as nearer to 15 miles, but there were a lot of careful mini-steps on both descents, so probably the higher end of Ken's estimate might have been nearer the mark.

After some rest and relaxation - mostly hot baths - we crossed the road to have dinner in the Blue Bell Inn. Whilst it has a nice selection of 8 real ales, the food was generally on the poor side of standard pub fare.

Yorkshire Dales weekend 2017

It was our 8th annual walking weekend away and we had our largest ever turnout of 11, including 3 debutants - John Davies, Nigel Meany and Jeb Tyrie. That takes the total number of participants to date up to 13 - Andy Marshall and Jack Simpson being the other two who have attended previously.

Our leader, Ken Black, has, of course, made an appearance at each one, albeit a very brief one at the first event back in 2010 when we tackled the northern section of the West Highland Way.

After 4 consecutive years of travelling in the month of May, we reverted to September again this year for our 3rd trip over the border - this time to the Yorkshire Dales.

Day 1 - Hawes to Hardraw

We arranged to meet up in the car park at Hawes at lunchtime, stopping there for a brief coffee in what was a combined bike and coffee shop:

We got diverted a little on the fairly short walk to Hardraw as the field we were traversing was flooded, but it didn't take us long to reach the Green Dragon pub, where we were obliged to pay an entry fee of £2.50 per head to gain access to the privately managed waterfall Hardraw Force, the highest single drop waterfall in England:

Meanwhile, JD watched Dougal have fun in the water:

After we had all taken our quota of photos, we headed back to the pub for a quick beer:

The weather was pretty kind to us - and remained so all weekend - as we headed up a short incline to carry on our circular route back to Hawes. It had been a nice gentle introduction to the weekend - here's the stats:

It was a fairly short drive through narrow, undulating roads to Kettlewell and the Racehorses Hotel, where we met up with Nigel, who had travelled up from Huddersfield. Beers and dinner were consumed and we were all set for the first full day's walking on Friday.

Morrone

We promised ourselves at the start of the year that we would try and complete at least one "training walk" per month this year and on the first day of the 9th month, we completed our 9th walk of 2017.

The August walk, when I was away, went unreported, but Messrs Sharp, Williamson and Kilgour did the Balmoral Cairns walk on Friday 11th August. No official stats available, but the https://www.walkhighlands.co.uk web site says it is a 9.75 kms walk with 348 m of elevation. No photos either, but Ian did supply this selfie:

It was a glorious day in Upper Deeside again on Friday for Walk No. 9 and there was some added frisson with the fact that it was the eve of the Braemar Highland Games and the place was buzzing.

Walking up Chapel Brae at the start of the walk, we spotted the Royal Navy tug of war teams practising:

We passed by a little pond as we strolled further up Chapel Brae towards the official start of the walk:

The first decision point came soon after:

No need to fear - the directions we had from the web site were again very clear and it waasn't a complicated route. The path was fairly wide and well made at the start:

The climb was fairly steep - at least until we arrived at a bit of a false summit, where there were 4 large cairns. Dave hydrated and then we took a team photo:

The climb was less steep after this point, and eventually, we got to the real summit:

From the top, there were terrific 360 degree views of Deeside and beyond - a paragilder soared above us and we could clearly pick out Mar Lodge below:

The descent was on a long and winding road south that eventually would lead us through Braemar Golf Club and back to the village:

We walked along the road that ran beside the river Cluny, with Andy snapping away:

To get to our chosen drinking destination - the Moorfield House Hotel - we had to loop back up Chapel Brae again, but soon we were supping in the sun on the decking overlooking the park where the Gathering was to be held on the Saturday:

Unfortunately, the hotel had no food on that day, so we soaked up our 4 pint session with numerous packets of crisps before heading for the bus back to Banchory. There was an appropriate sign at the bus stop:

Morrone was my first Corbett - unfortunately, the battery ran out on my phone near the end of our walk as you can see from the stats:

So, 9 walks so far, the longest of which was the first one up Hill of Fare in February - over 15 kms. The shortest was Balmoral Cairns - just under 10 kms. The average walk has been about 13 kms.

In terms of altitude/climbing, Morrone's 650 m up to the summit at 859 m was by the far the most we've done this year (so far), and the one with the least amount of climbing was obviously the coastal walk from Newburgh to Blackdog back in March.

Eight of us - plus Dave's friends Matt & Harry - have been on at least one of the walks. Our leader, Ken, has only managed one so far and Jeb has been tied up at work so hasn't been able to join us yet - and nor have Gordon and Stewart, although I hear that they have been training together regularly recently on Brimmond Hill and Hill of Fare. I've been on 8 of the 9 walks and Colin and Dave both 7, whilst John McW has been on 6 and Ian Sh and Nigel both 4. Andy, who won't make it along to the Dales this year, has been on 2 of the walks.