Stolly's Running Blog: An alternative 3 (and a bit) Peaks of Yorkshire

Sunday 30 June 2013

An alternative 3 (and a bit) Peaks of Yorkshire

A fabulous run yesterday with H and H, trotting from Ingleton in a jaggedy loop over Gragareth, Great Coum, Whernside, Park Fell, Simon Fell and Ingleborough before dropping back down to Ingleton to finish. We were travelling at Lakeland 50 (Hester) and my (extremely hopeful) Lakeland 100 pace..... so just we were poodling really but what a tremendous route:

Ze route

According to movescount it was 27.68 miles with 5,843 feet of climb

We didn't the best of starts though, falling out with the Ingleton Waterfall Trail warden above Beezley Falls. Over the years I must have paid to wander round this trail a dozen times or more with my kids etc (and its not cheap either) but, for a direct running route to Whernside or Kingsdale, I've always run up what is the east side of the walk without even considering that I'm using the walk (or looking at the waterfalls) and locals in the know can walk up and down this River Doe side of the walk without paying anything anyway. This time though the ~~mini Hitler~~ warden at the Fall Refreshment Centre (aka checkpoint charlie) stopped us and demanded that we pay - obviously we had no money so paying wasn't an option nor did I think fair and, after initially trying to be reasonable to a chap who was coming across like a fully paid up member of the Gestapo, I told the warden that we couldn't pay "so sue me" and he, in turn, told me never to come back again! I will either do my runs around Kingsdale from the Dent end in the future, start early (before the warden's awake) or just not bother with Ingleton at all, which would of course be to the detriment of other local businesses like Bernie's cafe and one or two pubs. Bureaucracy gone mad!

Anyway the rest of the run was truly brilliant ☺