Yorkshire 3 Peaks Challenge

That's Pen-y-Ghent (691 metres), Whernside (728 metres) and Ingleborough (723 metres) totalling 39.2km (24.5 miles) in under 12 hours.

Did we do it????

Ready to go

5.30am Saturday morning and the challenge starts - that's the challenge of getting out of bed 'are we really doing this? Why?' We were on the road by 6.15am, joining us was Gemma and Ollie the dog. Just over an hour later and we were parked up and ready to go.

Official start time 7.47am, we left Horton in Ribblesdale and started the climb to Pen-y-Ghent. The weather wasn't the best and we couldn't see the top, not sure if this was a good or bad thing. 

Just see the top

Half way up

We climbed steadily walking through fields, Pen-y-Ghent looking more daunting the closer we got. The terrain changed and we started our scramble to the top. 

One down

At 9.15am we summited the first peak and took a well earned rest. One down! We grabbed a quick bite to eat before starting towards Whernside off in the distance.

On to Whernside

It's only the first one!

This part of the walk was tough. After dropping down from Pen-y-Ghent onto Horton Moor the ground was one massive bog. After negotiating the swamp maze and unsticking Ollie - twice, we looked no closer to Whenside. Quiet disheartening!

Looking back to Pen-y-Ghent

Ribblesdale Viaduct

We continued to trudge on and finally made it to Ribblesdale Viaduct. It was nice to start climbing again and gave us a boost.

Half way up Whernside

Reaching the top seemed to take forever, you walk along the railway then double back on yourself whist slowly climbing. The cloud had lifted revealing great views of Yorkshire, the Lake district and .....the sea!




We reached the summit of Whernside at 2.05pm, six hours into the challenge.

Two down

After a spot of lunch the walk was back on with an extremely steep decent off the top. Another tough challenge as legs were starting to tire.

Joined by the support group

Sun setting over Ingleborough

The cavalry arrive!
At Chapel le Dale we met Clare, Graham, Sophie and Lee. Which was amazing, the support lifted us all, the sun came out and we were excited about the start of Ingleborough.

That was until we arrived at the sheer rock face that stood in our way. Without doubt the toughest climb of the day, an evil little secret!

and that's three!

Finally we made it to the top at 5.10pm, very hot and knackered, but that was the last peak done and all we needed to do now was get down.

Home straight

The walk from Ingleborough to Horton is a pretty one - the limestone pavements would be fun to play on in a different circumstance. As it was the last two hours were really tough mentally and physically so heads were down and we ploughed on back to the village, arriving at 7.22pm. We did it!!!

Challenge completed in 11 hours and 35 minutes

A massive thanks to everyone who helped out - Gemma for joining us all the way, Sophie, Clare, Graham and Lee for giving us the final push to the finish and Ollie dog who we think completed it three times over.

It was definitely a good training session for Kilimanjaro in 6 months time! If you would like to sponsor us the links are at the top of the page :)

Amy and Caroline x