Five went to Ribblesdale

Horton in Ribblesdale is on the famous Settle to Carlisle Line, so no buses needed to get there by public transport from King's Cross. We stayed in a bunkroom situated behind one of the village's two pubs. Luckily we had one twenty bedded bunkroom to ourselves...

Sunday promised to be the better day so we thought we'd do Pen Y Ghent that day and on Saturday aimed to stay 'down in the valley' to keep out of the clouds, and planned a walk around the famous Ribblehead Viaduct. Did  I say that we weren't going to need buses? Not so hasty.....it was a weekend of engineering works, so not only could we not actually take the train over the viaduct, but we had to take a bus replacement service to get there! Three of us felt that as Ingleborough was between Ribblehead and Horton, that we might as well walk back that way......The paths are easy going - all well laid out with slabs of stone to minimise footpath erosion. However, soon visibility was limited to the path and a few blades of grass to either side - we were climbing up, and up into a cloud and ferocious rain storm we went. We even lost each other briefly on the summit.... Fortunately it was Yorkshire's equivalent of Clapham Junction and other walkers reported seeing a 'lady in blue'. As we descended the skies cleared and we had a couple of hours of walking towards Horton with amazing limestone pavements to either side of us, and a wonderful view of Pen Y Ghent ahead.

The evening brought unbroken sunshine and all the summits were clear. Not quite so the next morning - the 'better' day turned out to be not exactly that, but we went up Pen Y Ghent anyway. We had lunch by the side of Hunt Pot - a very very deep crevice in the moor, with a cascading waterfall descending way, way down. Two of us added an extra loop to the way back to Horton - though following the 'Ribble Way' footpath was not exactly straightforward - or rather, some very large cows got rather in the way.

The famed Pen Y Ghent cafe provided many hot drinks and a few tales. As we arrived one morning a couple of men were just leaving - they had just spent the night walking the Three Peaks (25 miles encompassing Whernside, Pen Y Ghent and Ingleborough). Not so long ago another couple of men had done the round trip three times in 24 hours. To 'qualify' you have to complete in 12 hours and a single circuit is sufficient! There is a log book held at the cafe which you can sign once you have 'qualified' - that's for another time!

  Jenefer S.  31st October 2015