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| Dent Station |
Up at 5:15 to get the 6:37, arriving at Dent Station at 7:40 or thereabouts. The journey up was slightly troubling - I was counting on fair, temperate weather so the thick fog was a bit of a worry. Still, I'm nothing if not safety conscious, so I knew I had gear to cover every eventuality. In the event the fog cleared somewhere around Settle.
Setting off from Dent Station, I ran down the hill on the road, losing a lot of height, then gradually started to put it on again. I saw this sign outside the Sportsman, which gave me a chuckle:
I picked up the Blea Moor Tunnel path at Bridge End, and started the climb up through the woods. You get a good view of the tunnel from the path:
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| Blea Moor Tunnel |
The plantation here has been recently felled, and I spotted a deer in the scrub just ahead.
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| Spot the deer |
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| Blea Moor plantation, looking down Dentdale |
Crossing the wall at the Hill Inn, I found this lying on the ground:
not knowing what it was, I left it there. Shortly afterwards I encountered a couple of marshals from one of the charity walks trying to figure out where they'd lost their 'stake'. Oh-ho! It struck me (not before one of them had set off back to get it - I'm a little slow on the uptake sometimes) that I wasn't in any crashing hurry, whereas they needed to get to their assigned position ahead of the members of their event, so I popped back for it.
I caught them up at the bottom of the scramble, and (along with a couple of runners who were doing peaks events) took a steady, glycogen sparing climb to the top. I did a fair amount of cheering peaks walkers on yesterday - I've done the 3 peaks several times at varying speeds.
Another break to text people and eat some food on the top of Ingleborough, and then back down the other side to Horton, chatting briefly with a geordie lad who looked completely broken, but came into Horton not far behind me.
Very welcome tea and fruit cake at the fantastic Pen Y Gent cafe in Horton.
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| Tea and cake at the Pen Y Gent cafe |
I've been stopping off in there a good few years, and it's always nice to be recognised and welcomed. They do a fine veggie fried breakfast, which sadly wasn't on my agenda for today. They very kindly filled up my totally drained 2 litre platypus though.
Pen Y Gent itself proved to be hard work - the heat was starting to tell a bit. I was still maintaining the glycogen saving climb speed though, and got to the top in pretty good order.
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| The layered grit & limestone cap of Pen Y Gent |
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| Tiny flowers growing in the limestone scramble |
A pleasant chat with a lady and her grandchildren on the top, and then off over Plover Hill and down into Littondale, passing a group of DofE-ers on the way down the back of Plover Hill, picking my way fairly steadily down the exposed path above the crag.
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| The top of Littondale |
From here it was just a trog down Littondale. The field paths should have been easy going, but the grass and clover is high enough at the moment to grab at your feet and make running hard work. A brief bit of navigational trouble at Nether Hesleden caused by slowly depleting blood sugar, and then familiar paths to Arncliffe. The last few km's along the road from Arncliffe to Hawkswick seemed to take forever - it was very hot and close, and I'd run out of water again at Litton.
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| Towards Litton |
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| Belted Galloway bullock in Littondale |
Finally though, I made it, and managed to sort out with the staff at Hawkswick Cote that I'd made a reservation. Sadly, Hawkswick Cote aren't taking any more bookings - they're moving over to owned statics only. More and more campsites are refusing to take tents or even touring caravans. I guess they make more money that way.
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| Hawkswick Cote campsite |
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| End of a long hot day |
After a short, very minor dehydration wobble which I spent huddled in my bivi bag, I went and showered. All evening I was asked by people why I was walking funny, and why I chose to run a long way with camping gear. It's a fair question....
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| Mushroom cheesy porridge - just add water |
I'd been worried about being too cold overnight, but in the end the reverse was the problem - it was a hot, close night with lots of midgies. To get away from the midgies I had to take refuge inside my sleeping bag (which has a midge net), but that meant I was far too warm. Add to that the constant shouting of some obnoxious teenager nearby and it wasn't a restful night. Once things went quiet I was just.....wide awake. No reason, just wide awake. That was frustrating. I did get to sleep eventually, probably getting 3 or 4 hours. Around 5 all the groups of kids started waking up and moving around. I ignored it for a while, but I was awake again. So I had a cuppa, packed up, recharged my gps *again* having carelessly left it switched on overnight, and got going.
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| Recharging the GPS |
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| Overnight camp |
Day 2:
A very steady run to Hawkswick village and then a climb up and over the end of the fell. At this point I was getting very painful stomach cramps (which had started during the night) and was fairly decided that I was going to sack it at Kettlewell. I farted around indecisively for a while at Kettlewell, intending to sit outside the cafe until 12:30 to catch the bus. Midgies found me though, and my stomach started to behave, and it was 8am, so the bus would be another 4 1/2 hours, so I set off for Grassington.
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| Narrow bridge at Hawkswick |
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| Looking back down Littondale |
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| Dropping into Kettlewell |
I had a lovely run to Grassington. It was still early enough to be cool, but sunny and the moor was a joy to run on. This stretch of moor is a wonderful place to run. The views over Wharfedale are breathtaking, the terrain is gentle and rolling, and there's a feeling of spaciousness without exposure.
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| Conistone Pie |
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| Conistone Dib |
Once I got to Grassington though, I'd decided I was going no further. I'd had enough, I was too hot, sunburned and tired. I could have kept going, but I'd have ended up with much worse sunburn and wouldn't have enjoyed it. So I settled outside CoffeeEco for twenty minutes with a very nice pot of loose leaf tea, and a chocolate muffin.
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| TEA! |
A bus to Skipton, a walk to the station, a train and a run home, and that was that. Now I'm sitting indoors enjoying the cool and drinking tea. The final tally was 54km and 1700m ascent on the saturday, then about 20km and 400m today (the track file shows the 16km run as far as Grassington, with some fartarsing around in Kettlewell - I'm factoring in the run home from the station too).
Lessons learned:
- Cater for weather that's hotter than you expect, as well as colder.
- Tents don't just keep out rain, they keep out midgies as well. Plus being closely wrapped in a bivi bag is very warm. An ultra-lightweight solution to that problem would be a necessity if I was going to do this more often.
- Hence I'd skimp more on sleeping bag than tent next time.
- Even without much sleep, a nights rest allows more recuperation than you might expect.
- If everything is in boil bags, there's no need for a plate.
Things that worked well:
- pacing - 11.5mins per km overall average works well - I can keep that up for hours.
- Montane featherlight ultra gilet: thin pertex shield gilet. I wasn't sure it'd add much warmth, but for it's packed size and weight it's amazing.
- Stove - I was right to take the meths stove, I know what to expect of it, and it's totally reliable
- Shoving a thermarest prolite in the hole for the duomat in an OMM pack. You have to get the fold right, but it does fit and it cushions the pack.
- Using a campsite for an overnight on a run. I was tempted to wild camp, but after running and sweating heavily for hours, a shower is a necessity to avoid discomfort later. A two day wild camping run would be ok, but would need to be much shorter.
- Little electronic thingy for charging my GPS from 4 AA batteries. Very effective.
- Boil a bags - Lakeland sell them. I've tried making porridge in freezer bags before, they go floppy and spill your food. These heavier gauge bags don't.
- Pack weight - it'd be worth reducing it, but it was very manageable to run with
- Running hat with neck flap (present from Martin for my birthday last year :-)). Without that my neck would have burned horribly.
Things that worked much less well:
- my stomach
Update: got the GPS tracks now:
Day 1
Day 2
Very good!
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