Walking?

On the 21st of July 2018 I  attempted the Yorkshire Three Peaks Challenge, to raise money for the British Red Cross. Quite the worthy cause, n'cest pas? The avid readers amongst you will know that my penchant for walking was awakened in the hazy days of 2017 when I walked fifty something miles on holiday with my mate Issi, we booked the holiday before we met. You can read about that here if you really want to.

Look out for a bold title if you want to skip/scroll to the Y3P attempt

The challenge will take us 10 to 12 hours. I say us because I'm not doing this solo. It's a team effort, we're either team EIM, IME, or IRE. I'm the M or R in these acronyms. The E and the I, respectively, are Ed and Issi, a veritable father daughter powerhouse of stamina. As you all know I am a doughy brown man, so I've been doing my best to catch up/add value.

The catching up started with me walking on an incline on a treadmill, three times a week since February. I had no idea if this would help at all once I got into them there hills. Then came the Dorket Head saga, this is the highest point in Nottingham, at a staggering 146 metres above sea level(!) But it's a 13+ mile walk so distance wise it was a good test, I was knackered at the end.

Dorket Head's Trig Point, to break up the text...

An impossibly neat hedge, from my second Dorket heading

We progressed to the Peak District and decided to traverse a route that combined Dovedale and the Tissington Trail. Issi and I set off at a breakneck pace, I had to pee for the first two hours of the walk, I've never been more relieved to find a public bathroom! And I know what you're thinking, "Dude you're in the countryside just find a tree!", the place was choca with families I had no chance of finding somewhere secluded to answer the call of nature. We got lost, course corrected and got lost again towards the end. As a result we had to hop the odd wooden fence, stone wall, and electrified fence. 

Just before we went off route we saw some darling cow babies :-)

Before we finished I gingerly asked if we should celebrate with a pint, expecting some fierce resistence, there was none. This was just before my fellow walker turned and said "There should be a well here..." She suspected we were lost again as there was no well, I gesture towards the well we'd just walked past, she smiles. Rarily have I enjoyed a pint so much.

The post walk pint with my walking compadre just off cam.

The following week Ed, Issi, and I, tackled Kinder Scout! At the time it was the hardest walk I'd ever done. Steep, hot, uneven, boggy, unclear instructions, where o where is Pym chair!? My personal highlight was the realisation we'd somehow looped round back to Jacob's Ladder, it's a rocky construction that was super punishing on the way up so we were not relishing descending it. But we finished, grabbed a pint, and feasted on a smorgasbord from the Mcdonalds saver menu, worth it.

Worth it for the view/Maccies feast.

A few weeks later Issi and I tried out something that combines Derwent and Howeden Reservoirs, Margery Hill, and Howden Edge. We started off by getting lost, but we soon realised and were walking round a nice looking body of water, in the shade. I'd bought myself an OS map, compass, AND waterproof case. So I looked... well I have no idea how I looked. It was going well till just after Cranberry Clough. We took a wrong turn, doubled back, took what we thought was the right turn, and had to walk through some rather course heather, filling our boots with tiny spines. But we lucked/reasoned our way through and made it back. Issi kindly bought us burgers from the cafe, delish. 

Quite dramatic, keeping with tradition Issi's obliquely in view

That brings us to our team's last preparatory walk, The Kinder Trespass Anniversary Walk. Issi and I had wisely decided to prepare for our walk but starting the day before by eating pho and banh mii, more or less soup and a sandwich. Before progressing to drink cocktails and beer for the rest of the day. We finished up by consuming some rather delicious Korean fried chicken from The Gallus. I wasn't hanging but I wasn't as fresh as I could've been. I'd dutifully marked our the route the night before and paid close attention to landmarks.

I was also wheeling this case around with me the whole day before, question is can you guess why?!

As we set out I was totes on top of where we needed to go, whereabouts we were on the map, our next move etc. But once we got onto some terrain that was less distinct it all went to pot. My spidey sense was triggered by Lantern Pike, it appeared where it shouldn't have been, if we were on route. We somehow duped ourselves into thinking we were still heading the right way, we were not. Once more we should've realised that when were were walking through tiny, overgrown, cut throughs, that were wedged between two rows of tall garden fences.

With every attempted correction we were not getting any closer to being back on route. The decision was made, collectively, to cut our losses, and headed straight back to where we'd started, the walk wasn't a write off though. What would've been a 15.2 miles ended up being just over 13.

Shortly after taking the photo...

I hung back to capture the dynamic father daughter duo forging ahead. Naturally I broke into a bit of a run to catch up, can you see where this is going? No I didn't plummet to my death down a steep slope, I did however almost sprain my ankle. My boots being almost ankle encasing saved me from that fate.

Two mountains and a fell in 12 hours or less, did we do it?

All signs pointed to me not attempting the Yorkshire 3 Peaks, ankle tendonitis setting in two weeks before, my well worn in boots breaking three days before, and spilling boiling water on my right foot two days before. But I stretched and rested my ankle, got my boot fixed, and quickly cooled my burnt foot. There’s also my being a doughy brown man, but I’ve always been one of those.

Only an eyelet I here yee cry, but the other two had cracks in too. Luckily Ryan at Timpson fixed me right up.

Traffic's a nightmare on Fridays, a 2.5 hour journey took just over four hours but I'll skip the details of my dalliance with Friday rush hour traffic and jump to the morning of. But not before bringing Giggleswick to your attention, possibly my new favourite place name! 

Up at 0400 on Saturday the 21st of July 2018, I have 1.5 hours to be in the car and my way to Horton in Ribblesdale. As that was the official start and finish place for the Yorkshire Three Peaks challenge, Y3P. Plenty of time I hear you collectively think. Alas I am a champion faffer, but I am also well aware of my faffing tendencies, so I have compensated by by packing my backpack, pre-talcum powdering my socks, and laying out all my clothes. Too cool for school, I know.

I make it out of the pub carpark on time and hurtle in the Yorkshire dawn. I'm breakfasting on granola bars whilst driving. Upon arrival I am greeted by a jolly volunteer who is collecting parking fares, I deposit my £3 into the bucket and he whispers “You can park by the gate”. Not sure why he’s whispering but I whisper back, “whisper etiquette”. As I get out of the car and stumble a little, good sign I know, I spot the other member of team IRE! They’re parked directly in front of me, coincidence? Fate obvs.

I gather my walking paraphernalia, make my way over to them, and exchange pleasantries. I note Issi sounds huskier than usual, turns out she’s sporting a cold. Yet here she is raring to go, surly to the core. I’m told of how Ed’s never seen his daughter eat so much for breakfast, he recites an impressively long list of breakfast foods. He had also left a thank you note for Keith, the man who had prepped their super early breakfast, the note was signed off with a kiss. Ed insists it was a cross but we all know what an "X" at the end of a message signifies. We make our way to registration, Ed decides to jump aboard team Red Cross at the last minute. Mostly so he can utilise the water and fruit caches with a clean conscience. We’re issued some cards with the 7 checkpoints on. They’ll check them off as we go, so they know who is where and can deploy sweepers accordingly. After stopping to don waterproofs, it’s spitting a little, we set off around 0640.

Cannily cropped the bottom of my check point card, question is can you fathom why?

Ed declares we have an hour and something to summit Pen-y-ghent if we’re to keep to our ten hour completion time. We push on, once out of the village things get steep, and stay steep. As we go through a gate, I lose my footing and progress to fall extremely slowly. Issi would later tell me she heard some kerfuffle, turned to see what it was, and I was still falling! Didn’t hit the deck, I sort of took a knee. A number of strangers rushed to offer me aid, which was heartening. We push on and I am bricking it. This is a lot harder going than I was anticipating, but I think to myself “get one done”. As we approach the top it’s a straight up scramble/climb up rocks. Again I was not expecting this and am wholly unprepared. There are queues developing at the harder spots, I am glad of a break, even if the it is perched precariously on some rocks.

We make it in time and this is also where checkpoint one is, there are free energy bars, bananas, and water. Ed and I are well up for a banana. Issi stands in front of us ready to go, arms crossed. We wolf down our soft fruit but not before I mockingly imitate Issi’s impatient stance. The cloud is low, or is it mist. The view, which is sure to be quite something, is out of sight. But the mist/cloud does stop the sun from making us overheat, swings and roundabouts.

The descent is tough on the quads, mine are super sore and thankful of the reprieve provided by even ground. We walk on to Whernside. Issi and Ed are setting a pace that is well beyond my comfort zone. But luckily songs keep popping into my head to motivate me. Any guesses as to what they were? Unless you were there you won’t be able to guess I assure you. They were of course devotional songs from youth, Hindu devotional songs! I guess my Tamil roots run deep and surface when I’m huffing and puffing up hill, click here for a taste of what was running through my head. I tell the team and Ed shoots back with a Mamma Mia quip, little did he know that most Tamil films are musicals!

I'm not so far behind...

I more or less keep pace and we eventually see the viaduct. We’re on course and seeing things we’d read about in our in depth research. There’s a brief pause for removing a stone from my boot, a phantom stone, or it fell out as I removed my foot from my boot. As we ascend Issi is in the lead, even with a cold she’s setting a pace that my non-virus ridden system can barely keep up with, beast.

Ok I'm quite far behind.

There’s a query about whether we saw a waterfall or not… we did not. As we turn a corner we’re greeted by the waterfall we thought we’d missed.

There had been a particularly dry spell, more of a water trickle I grant you.

Whernside is a whole lotta uphill. Issi pauses, I’m assuming to let me catch up. As I approach and exhale deeply, she tells me she’s hit a wall, human after all. I reply with “I reckon I hit it about an hour and a half ago…” We laugh, a fellow walker from the North East chimes in, we gather ourselves and march on.

We spot people gathered around a gap in the wall. It slowly dawns on us that we’ve gotten to the top of Whernside! The summit crept up on us, or did we unknowingly creep up upon it? We’re five minutes behind schedule but chipper. Spirits lifted, I offer everyone a nutball, no takers, we pause a while before setting off again. What goes up must come down, something that I’d forgotten about my mood when walking long distances. As we descend I found myself bouncing from bank to bank of a dried up rivulet. I realised my dipped mood had perked up again.

Ed had found a second wind and shot off  ahead of us. We conclude that this energy boost is a result of that bag of mixed nuts and raisins he always has with him. It also turns out Issi’s unforgiving pace setting was, partly, fuelled by unending egging on from Ed. The descent gets steep and I hear exclamations of “This is ridiculous!” from walkers behind me. I take it slowly, following Ed and Issi’s route choices. Alas it gets too steep and loose for me so I drastically course correct. It’s now I'm informed that a group had decided to follow me down this decline… I almost fall a couple of times but catch myself, and cut across to a more stable part of the slope, rockier, and solid under foot. The rest of team IRE are waiting for me at the bottom. Exclamations of how ridiculous that was are shared and we head for a turnstile.

At some point Issi comments that I'd gone full on Northern. I grew up in Grimsby, so I should sound, more or less, like Issi. But I don't, I sound neutral, non-regional diction. Think newsreader but with an edge of "maybe he once met a Northerner..." After spending half a day in Doncaster for a 70th birthday, my North-ish roots had been replenished, this was cranked up by the kindness of a stranger and the friendliness of folks up north in general.

My quads are spent after that decline, as we’re chatting about downward slopes I pull out a paraphrased cliche “There’s downhill and then there’s downhill” a chap speeding past us adds “There’s downhill and there’s there’s THAT downhill” we share a laugh before he leaves us in his dust. Once more Issi bursts into the lead, Ed following closely, and me willing myself to keep up. When I tell them I had my doubts about getting this far because an hour in I was thinking “My feet hurt”, I receive a simple and stern instruction from our pacesetter “Don’t”. I acquiesce of course. Issi puts in a monumental kick motivated by a bathroom at a snack stop. We use the facilities, I buy two Mars bars and a Twix, and we reach checkpoint 5.

We were feeling a little downhearted/confused as the faces that had become familiar during the first two ascents/descents were nowhere to be seen. Either we’d burnt them off with our blistering pace, or we’d been burnt off by their’s. The consensus is that we were the ones who had been burnt. At checkpoint 5 we have a bit of a chat with the marshals. When asked how many people have come through, they tell us about 50. We assume we’re bringing up the rear, so we inquire out of how many, they tell us about 250. Flabbergasted, we’re in the top 20%... not what we were expecting. We are energised by the unexpected news of our performance.

Onwards to Ingleborough, how hard can it be? Probably not as hard as I remember it, but there were two peaks behind us, this was quite the effort. Ed adopted shooting off in bursts and taking breathers. From time to time Issi would pause to let us catch up, before resuming her pace setting duties. My hip flexors are shot, quads hurt, calves on the edge of cramping, but it’s not like I can’t move. The steep ascent gets steeper. As we look up we’re met with something that looks rather ridiculous. Visibility is rather awful and we’d be walking into the clouds. 

That cloud/mist view I just mentioned, with the back of Issi's dainty head for scale, this is about halfway.

One last push we’re told. Onwards. Ed and Issi shoot off, I take it step by step. It becomes more of a scramble/climb again. I stop to let some people pass on their way down, they tell me I’m 5-7 minutes from the top. I push on, I’ve lost sight of Ed and Issi. I briefly lose my balance but luckily my poles are planted firmly so I don’t fall back causing a domino effect. I get to level ground and the I and E from team IRE are waiting for me. We stride vaguely into the mist/cloud in the opposite direction to those heading back down.

We see a tent and we’ve made it to checkpoint 6, almost there. After a brief nutball and carb gel break, down we go. Descending involves heading back the way we came for a bit. It’s hard, fellow walkers are coming the other way, some folks push past, but we get through and turn towards Horton in Ribblesdale. Downhill all the way, more or less. Issi shoots off ahead, but lets us catch up and we chat. Nothing major just school, mind over matter, training.

Ooh there was a small boy descending Ingleborough as we were going up. Issi clocked his tiny walking boots, I clocked is bright blue eyes. I then go on to explain that I envy anyone with colour in their eyes, mine are super dark brown, aka almost the absence of colour. My mind predictably meanders and I start thinking out loud about what the major feature of my face is… not my eyes, my brow is too pronounced, thus making them appear small. Perhaps my brow, nah probs my nose. It’s now that I notice Issi is laughing, I’m always happy to instigate a laugh, even if I didn’t mean to. She turns to her dad and asks him what he thinks is the major feature of my face. He laughs and they decide that this needs further discussion before coming to a conclusion.

There are parts of this that would be near impossible if there had been significant rain. Some of the descents would have been way too slippery and loose. As we plod along there’s a sign that tells us we’re 2 miles from the finish point. Ed exclaims less than an hour then. Initially I’m a little gutted but he points out that compared to how long we’ve been walking that’s nothing. I explain how walking a couple of miles was a reasonable walk for me… before embarking on the training for this. We pass a few familiar faces, and before we know it we see the village. It’s now that I’m struck by how remarkable my two teammates are. Issi is full of cold, Ed is more than twice my age, neither has complained once, both have helped me maintain pace, and I would not have finished without them. Issi stops to take a picture of a group with a sign saying:

“You’ve just completed the Yorkshire three peaks… no need to tell the whole village”.

Or something to that effect.

We cross over the railway lines and Issi shoots off into the lead again. But she slows her roll and we regroup. I say "Team finish?", she replies with "Team finish."As we walk on we see people heading the other way with their medals. Drawing closer we notice the pubs are crammed full, there’s a great dane! I should mention that dogs played a big role in maintaining my morale. They would pop in and out of sight lifting my spirits. As we approach the hall we hear applause for anyone who’s completed. We walk in and are met by a wall of well done and clapping. We don’t take positive reinforcement well, as we clock out we’re handed certificates and are medalled.

See why I cannily cropped before?

Taking a seat has rarely felt so good. Ed’s getting the teas in. I get my nutball on, and offer them to my teammates for the last time. Issi takes an almond ball as does Ed. Issi is positively shocked at how nice they are. We join in with the applause as more people finish, there are a couple of false starts. Other Red Cross volunteers, people who had already finished popping back in. Ed chugs cup after cup of tea, and drops the teaman a hefty compliment. Best tea he’s had all day, if only Keith was there... It'd taken us 10.5 hours, Ed and I are sure Issi would've done it in under 9 if we weren't slowing her down and she was sans cold. Now to see if we can get a celebratory pint.

I finally have the chance to get the drinks in and we take a pic with our certificates, medals, and pints, complete with me jazz handsing in the background. I would later learn that we’d climbed two mountains and one fell that day. I’ll stop there. That’s the story of how the day went. I doesn’t have all the details, but if it did it’d be even longer, and no one wants that.

Go team IME/IRE!

I’ve reached my donation target, smashed it in fact. Thanks to the conquistador, Mable^2, my Conisborough mandem, Dr Dad, the man who had a large part to play in why I’m still able to walk, and a dude from Issi's year, Mitchell, who donated after reading my write up!

If you’d like to donate then click here and do the thing, if not maybe have a go yourself next year.

If I can, you can.

N.b. There was brief talk of the National Three Peaks challenge...