Ingleborough; The Final Frontier

These are the voyages of Dave and Richard.

It was my last day of this particular trek and this afternoon I would be home again. I took my tent down and packed it away, along with the rest of my kit. Then Che cooked breakfast, another bacon, beans, eggs and black pudding extravaganza. Bugger the cholesterol; I’ll burn it off. Che ran me up to Kirkby Stephen station and I caught the 9.20 down to Ribblehead to meet Richard. He had driven up to Horton and then taken the train up to Ribblehead. From here we were going to walk a mile down the Horton road, turn right and climb steeply up Park Fell, walk along the ridge, climb up Ingleborough and follow the long trail down to Horton.

The morning was cool and breezy with low level cloud rolling over the mountains.

These Dales are special. However, today would be a well trodden track as half of our walk would be along the Yorkshire Three Peaks route. Rarely deserted and frequently swamped with folk.

Richard was clearly visible and on good form. Our daughters went to school together and now their dads hang out together.

Park Fell was steep but not too hard as there was a cool breeze and decent cloud cover. At the top we looked along the ridge to the back end of Simon Fell and beyond that, in the cloud, to Ingleborough.

When we reached Simon Fell the view of Ingleborough cleared. What a block of rock! I’ve climbed it many times now and it is still impressive. Particularly as, on the Three Peaks trail it’s the last of the Peaks, after 20 miles and two previous blocks of rock.

We caught up on the outstanding family chat and made reasonable time to the point where our path crossed the Three Peaks route. We couldn’t see that much with the cloud that kept sweeping across the blue sky and blocking out the sun, so it wasn’t the Three Peeks. Boom boom.

From there it’s a steep but relatively short climb up Ingleborough. We’d done the hard work earlier climbing up Park Fell.

And at the top we ate the sandwiches that Richard had brought, with typical generosity.

We made good pace down the mountain towards Horton and cracked on down the 3Peaks trail. I loved it.

We made Horton and Richard’s car before 3pm and managed a drink in the Crown before setting off home.

A great few days. I probably only covered 60 miles but I did climb 7 of the 10 highest peaks in Yorkshire as well as Wild Boar Fell in Cumbria. It’s a good start to my Alpine training. And it’s been beautiful country.

Night night.