The route represents the stage between Waterstop 1, past Checkpoint 1 in Malham and on to Checkpoint 2.
We set off at 8:20, from Gargrave (a small town just outside Skipton, about 4 miles into the TT route).
It was very cold and misty, but the sun broke through quite quickly!
Gotta love frozen puddles - better than bubble-wrap!
Going over the tops towards Airton
Malham Cove
A very frozen Malham Tarn - some crazy fool had actually walked right onto the ice! (can't see the footprints on this pic - they were further along!)
James at Malham Tarn
The Farm before heading up Fountains Fell
Looking back from the route up Fountains Fell
The flanks of Fountains Fell are notorious for the potholes and shakeholes, typical of limestone areas. Given the large snowfall would have hidden a lot of these, it was quite a nervous part of the walk! We stuck closely to some footprints on the path! In places, the snow was at least 30cm thick.
The summit of Fountains Fell also has a lot of old mine shafts. I understand the area was mined for coal in the 18th and 19th centuries! A lot of the shafts are open, hence this warning sign which advises walkers to stick to the path...The two piles of stones on the horizon mark the top.
Pen Y Ghent in the distance, as seen from the summit of Fountains Fell. You can actually make out a couple of walkers on the top if you look closely.
Descending Fountains Fell towards our next adversary: Pen Y Ghent!
Really quite a lot of snow! I haven't done much winter walking before, so it was great to take it all in! Especially as I absolutely love snow!
A photo of Fountains Fell from the route up Pen Y Ghent (you can see the descent route towards the left hand side.
A quick rest-stop
The top of Pen Y Ghent. On this occasion, as with many other training walks, we missed out on the top and headed down to Horton the quick way!
Heading down to Horton with the sun starting to set!
Our ride back!
This was a really good walk actually, if a little bit hot once the sun had burned all the morning mist away!
We'd originally planned to do 22 miles (i.e. complete the full ascent of Pen Y Ghent) but due largely to time constraints, we missed out the very top. The deep snow on Fountains Fell was very hard work to move through and it had obviously drifted quite a bit in places! At the end, I was very glad we didn't have another 42 miles to walk on this occasion :-)
Excellent fun though! Hopefully we can get another walk sorted out in 3 weeks or so. In the meantime, we need to ramp up the fundraising side of things! Hopefully we'll have some updates in this area :-)
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