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.