Stolly's Running Blog: The Wharfedale 3 Peaks

Sunday, 11 May 2014

The 'bog standard' 3 Peaks of Yorkshire are Pen y Ghent, Whernside and Ingleborough and, each weekend, from May to September especially, loads (and loads) of walkers and charity walkers, and a fair few fell runners, trog round what is a fabulous 23 mile route. Its really well known and me, Harry and Hester have been round it loads of times and I suspect we will continue going round loads of times in the future too. The thing is though all of the Yorkshire Dales and all of the peaks in the Yorkshire Dales are just as fabulous and you could equally pick any set of 3 peaks in any 23 mile loop and have an equally great and/or epic time out going round them.

So its really brilliant that Upper Wharfedale Fell Rescue are staging a super tough 3 Peaks challenge of their own, but set in Upper Wharfedale, with their route covering the 3 peaks of Birks Fell, Buckden Pike and Great Whernside. They have organised a formal 22 mile race/event on 28th June (full details can be found here) and, if you're up to long distance hill running or hill walking and are in the area, why not give it a bash? They're also doing a shorter 13.5 mile 2 peaks challenge (Buckden Pike and Great Whernside) and an even shorter family 4.5 miler on the same day so pretty much all bases are covered. With all proceeds going towards the funding Upper Wharfedale Fell Rescue so what's not to like?

Anyway I've often run a loop of upper Wharfedale around Birks Fell, Buckden Pike and Great Whernside but my route has typically been a measly 16 mile version but, having got wind of the Wharfedale 3 Peaks Challenge, on Saturday me and Harry gave (our best guess of) the route a go. And we picked a really good day to give it a go too with the going being officially 'soft' and heavy showers blasting in for at least half the time we were out. It certainly felt harder than the 'bog standard' (easy peasy) 3 Peaks of Yorkshire!

Abso-fricking-lutely fan-blinking-tastic!