Yorkshire 3 Peaks

Winter is starting to look promising - in early December Maria and I enjoyed great conditions on Pinnacle Ridge on St Sunday Crag, and the weather looks like staying cold for some time. On the last weekend before xmas we had our sights set on Stepped Ridge (on Brown Cove Crags) as our second route of the season. But with Maria not feeling well on Sunday morning, I needed to come up with an alternative, as soloing grade III routes is not really my thing...
The Yorkshire 3 peaks came to mind, so I headed off into the freezing morning and drove to Horton-in-Ribblesdale. Driving through Gargrave the temperature readout on the dashboard showed -17 ⁰C, and I began to wonder whether fell running shoes really were a better choice than nice warm boots... Still, I set out towards Pen-y-Ghent and the sight of snowy hills in the crisp morning light soon made me forget any lingering desire to still be in the warm bed at home.

Heading towards the first hill of the day

By the time I reached the summit of Pen-y-Ghent 45 minutes or so later I had only met one other person, which made a change from the only other time I'd been up there (on a sunny May bank holiday weekend). The way down gave me a chance to test out my Kahtoola micro-spikes, which successfully stopped me making an ultra-quick descent sliding down on my backside!

It seemed a long way from Pen-y-Ghent to Whernside, but I had a pork pie to fuel me and when I finally got to the top the view was a good reward. I broke into a nice jog on the way down the ridge from the summit, but turning left and heading back into the valley was definitely not running territory - with iced up rocks on the steep hillside it was a case of picking my way gingerly down and making sure I stayed on my feet.


The Hill Inn looked tempting (especially with Black Sheep on tap) but I persevered with the ascent of Inglebrough for some more beautiful views before jogging down into Ribblesdale in the last of the daylight.

All in all a good day out on the hill, and it should help my fitness for the real winter hills in Scotland in the coming weeks. The curry and beer when I got home wasn't bad either!