It was May of 2011 and was wondering where to go at the weekend, and after a checking where the better weather was likely to be, i decided to have a trip to the Yorkshire Dales and tackle Whernside. I chose this as i had wanted to do the 3 peaks one day and this would give me some sort of idea about the area. To my surprise, my wife Belinda wanted to come too. We set off on the sunday morning for the hour and half drive to our start point. The weather was pretty miserable all the way there, but this would be a new experience for Belinda and we were still looking forward too it. We parked up at the side of the B6255 near the Ribblehead viaduct and couldn’t believe how busy it was. Fortunately, as it was almost midday, a lot were already on there walks and we probably wouldn’t see many on our walk. I hate crowds and i like the place to myself when i’m walking- selfish i know….
We set off while it was drizzling with the intention that if it got worse we would head back to the car and come back another day. Fortunately the rain eased off and we were hopeful of a good days walking.
Once passed the viaduct, the path ran parallel to the tracks on the Settle to Carlisle Railway passed Blea moor signal box until we came to a tunnel that took us under the rail tracks.
We walked passed Force gill and started to climb on the path that was easy to follow. Belinda was just starting to feel it a bit and i had to keep encouraging her and she was doing really well. The weather was holding as well which helped.

The path up to the top has been enhanced by the yorkshire stone flags which cut across some very boggy land
On the final slog up to the top, it had started raining and the wind had picked up, making quite cold in our less than waterproof clothes.
We eventually made it to the top soaked to the skin, but t didn’t seem to matter as we were so pleased to get to the top. A great achievement for Belinda as she hadn’t been well recently and it was a good sign that she had the confidence in herself to get to the top in pretty awful conditions. I was very proud of her.
We decided to take shelter at the top for a while until the weather improved a bit. After having our lunch it did improve a bit, so we set off on the tricky steep decent. The path was very slippy and we had to be careful, which wasn’t easy as we wanted to get down as quick as we could.
Once we had reached the main path towards Blea moor signal box we knew we didn’t have far to go. Still damp and cold we still had a great sense of achievement of climbing Whernside in some awful conditions. We also resolved to get ourselves some proper clothes to deal with the poor weather we will experience on future walks.

I had wanted to see a train using the line, so i was delighted we had got back in time to catch this one going past
We were delighted to get back to the car, we had made the correct decision to put some spare clothes in the back and it was good to change into the dry ones. All in all it was a fantastic days walking which the weather failed to spoil. Belinda was rightly proud with herself, as was i, and she said she would like to join me on more walks in the future.
1 comment
tracey
29 November, 2012 at 1:56 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
really lovely story ,well done belle,i,d of been sitting in the pub waiting for you..good on ya lass..x