This other Eden, demi-paradise

I’ve not felt much like running this week so decided to take myself off for a long walk yesterday. The three peaks, but with a cunning twist. I decided I wanted to avoid the long slog across Black Dub Moss that lies between Pen y ghent and Whernside. It’s the least interesting bit of the walk and in weather like we’ve had recently, the only bit where proper walking boots are required. After consulting my Bradshaws it was clear that if I got my timing right, I could “do” Pen y ghent and return to Horton to catch the 9.58 train to Ribblehead. There were several unknowns in the plan including time spent dicking around before setting off and on arrival, the number of slow moving vehicles on the A65 to hamper the drive to the start and the timings for getting up and down Pen y ghent.

I slept longer than planned and was only held up by one slow moving vehicle (trailer delivering hay – Skipton to Hellifield). This gave me sufficient time to worry about whether I was going to be underdressed as the temperature gauge headed steadily downwards.

I parked up at Horton at 7.45 and it was a bit of a route march round Pen y ghent going up the accepted three peaks route and returning on the Pennine Way route. I had 15 minutes to spare to wait at Horton station, by which time it was clear that I was overdressed and it would have been advisable to pack the sunscreen. I must have worn out the sunscreen-responsibility gene by slavering the kids up with factor one million when they were bairns. I’d thought about it before setting off and concluded that only an idiot would take sunscreen for a walk in the north of England in March. Besides, I couldn’t find the sunscreen. Every winter we pack away our supply of sunscreen and by Spring we can’t remember where we’ve put it so buy a new tube. At least twice a summer we get somewhere and look expectantly at each other and one of us says “I thought you were packing the sunscreen” and end up buying another couple of tubes. At the end of every summer I spot a bargain and buy a reduced price tube. When I eventually find our sunscreen it’s like a trip down memory lane with a bewildering selection of half full (half empty?) tubes.

I got back to the car at 3.45 having scaled the remaining two peaks, consumed two litres of tap water, three Mars bars, four clementines and a generous portion of cold chilli con carne and rice (the ambrosia of the walking gods). I’d supplemented this with a pint of ice cold Thatcher’s Gold at the Old Hill Inn. I’d thought long and hard about the nature of genius (at least three minutes) and had at first concluded that the inventor of Zip Offs was the greatest inventor of the 20th century. I wavered later on when considering the inventor of the Spork, but held firm to my earlier conclusion. I tried to do some of that Communing with Nature bollox, but found that nature wasn’t very forthcoming. You see a very restricted range of birds and animals in the wilds and the only ones doing any communing were the frogs. There were zillions of them in all the little ponds communing away like crazy. If there’s a national shortage of frogs then I can confirm they’re all up Whernside having a great time. I saw my first butterfly of the year (small tortoiseshell) and was treated to some stunt flying by some loon in a WWII aeroplane. I spoke to one miserable old git (“I remember when you had to wade through bogs to get here. You could climb Ingleborough in your carpet slippers nowadays”) but saw remarkably few people all day. Although not the full three peaks, I still managed to walk over twenty one miles and climb 6,800 feet.

I have no idea whether my jaunt will have enhanced or damaged my marathon performance; I suspect it will have no effect whatsoever. It was a bloody good day though.