The Austwick Amble - 25th May 2015

Hot on the heels of my 20 mile run around Ingleborough the day before, me and Hester decided to run the Austwick Amble fell race on Bank Holiday Monday. This fell race is a great little 8 mile romp, run in conjunction with the Austwick Street Market and Cuckoo Festival, up over Norber to Nick Pot and returning via Sulber Nick and Crummack Dale. It was also my very first (fast and short) fell race since knacking my achilles in another short and fast fell race, the Gill Garth Gallop, last June. And thankfully my achilles seems to be fully up and running again.

Of course we left it a bit late leaving home, given that Austwick is only about 4 miles away, and didn't realise that the road to Austwick via Helwith Bridge would be closed (due to the Austwick Street Market funnily enough), meaning that we had a true Whacky Races drive over via Settle and had to park about a mile or so from the village with less than ten minutes to spare and run a mile to arrive at the start, check in and get on the start line by a whisker, with about 30 seconds to kick off. A top warm up to be sure!

Given that I'd run the 5 trigs of Ingleborough the day before, I was well pleased with my performance, finishing 68th out of 169 starters, in a time of 1:05:24 hrs. Hester too had been out for a long haul on the Saturday, supporting a friend Helen, on legs 4 and 5 of her (successful - yippee!) Bob Graham Round; those two legs amount to circa 21 miles and 9,000 feet of climb and, with that in mind, Hester ran brilliantly too.

Hmmm... maybe I should have a crack at a few more fell races then!

Austwick Amble from Austwick - 7.6 miles and 1,171 feet - route on Strava

Results

Ze route

Whizzing down into Crummack Dale with about two miles to go

Note the hastily pinned on racing number

Hester still wearing tights, even though its summer!

The 5 Trigs of Ingleborough.... with an added visit to the cairn on Simon Fell - 24th May 2015

A corker of a solo run last Sunday, visiting the 'famed' 5 trig points of Ingleborough. Well, when I say famed, I half remember another fell runner (from Bowland Fell Runners I think) vaguely mentioning on the fell runners association forum donkey's years ago that, with a bit of imagination, there are 5 trigs on and around Ingleborough and its a grand run out trying to link them all together. Which I've now done two or three times.

The trig points are (in the order I visited them) at Smearsett Scar (real imagination is needed to include this as 'on' Ingleborough but hey), Moughton (a far flung outlier of Ingleborough I guess), the Ingleborough trig point itself (duh), Park Fell (a definite outlier) and last but not least the barely known or visited trig just north of Sulber Nick (marked only with its height, 348 meters, on OS maps) which I guess is in the Ingleborough nature reserve so therefore counts as 'on' Ingleborough. A fantastic run out and a pretty flipping tough route too which I added to by also visiting the cairn at the peak of Simon Fell (if ever a hill deserved a trig point this is it). Its a cracker...

From Horton - 19.5 miles and 4,388 feet - route on Strava

Trig 1 - Smearsett Scar

Trotting through Oxenber Woods on the way to Wharf before the climb up Moughton

Trig 2 - Moughton

A bouncing selfie

The 'limestone lands' before Ingleborough (left) and Simon Fell (right)

Next up the cairn on Simon Fell

Trig 3 - Ingleborough (with the bloke that kept loitering about and ruining my shot)

Trig 4 - Park Fell

The fabulous descent into Ribblesdale off of Park Fell

Trig 5 near Sulber - with orchids

Sulber Trig

Litton, Haw Fell, Horse Head and Foxup from Horton - 17th May 2015

Hot on the heels of Saturday's 10 miler to Cosh Outside, me and Hester decided to run getting on for another 20 miles on Sunday, this time heading over to Littondale from home. Just before starting off Hester asked roughly how far we were going and, as I'd done a version of this run before, I dragged up a hazy memory and thought perhaps it would be 15 miles...... Yeah, well.

Still that's another fantastic running route from home done and dusted.

From Horton - 19.7 miles and 4,188 feet - route on Strava

Ze route

Leaving Horton behind

Synchronised lamb guzzling

Litton ahoy!

Starting the climb up Haw Fell

Chugging along the top of the ridge

Me modelling the 2015 range of professional running gear

Our 'path' was a bit gunky in places!

I won the muddy shoe competition then

Cosh Outside from Horton - 16th May 2015

To the north of Pen y Ghent and Plover Hill, between Foxup Moor and the western tip of Langstrothdale, is the end of a long curving ridge line with a trig point that I'd always thought would have a fantastic outlook over the top end of Ribblesdale. Before Saturday I'd never visited the spot (which I've called Cosh Outside because that's the name that appears on my OS map slightly near the spot) but, on a whim, while out on a run I decided to branch off of the main track (between Horton Scar and Foxup) and have a look see. There was no real path from that point on, just a bit of a sheep trod and a wall line to follow, but what a completely brilliant outlook when I got there!

Aside from the trig point, there was also a tall cairn on the slightly smaller hillock adjacent on the final tip of the ridge and both view points offered just stunning views back towards Pen y Ghent to the south and Ingleborough, Whernside and the pine forest of Langstrothdale to the west.

After metaphorically planting my flag I then decided to head west over a couple of miles of tussock grass to pick up the Pennine Way back to Horton, making for a nice circular route. That's a cracking new 10 mile run route invented then!

From Horton - 9.9 miles and 1,923 ft - route on Strava

My wall line heading for Cosh Outside

Looking back at Pen y Ghent

Looking towards Ingleborough from the trig with the cairn on the next hillock also in view

Plover Hill and Pen y Ghent

The cairn with Ingleborough, Ribblehead and Whernside in view

Gorgeous

The Pennine Way cart track back to Horton

Ze route

The 3 Peaks from Horton - 9th May 2015

And that's May's romp around the 3 Peaks done and dusted - 5 down and 7 to go for the year then! 

I kept a nice steady pace going all the way round too and finished still running well. There'd been a shed load of rain over night before, making for some soggy, boggy going in places and, with the chance of Winterscales beck being in spate, I decided to take the wall line straight up Whernside, via Gunnerfleet Farm, rather than risk trying to wade the beck and follow the fell race route up to the summit. It was probably a good choice in the circumstances and not too much of a time difference getting to the top either, which surprised me - about 4 minutes longer than when I went up the fell race line on 18th April.

Anyway, as usual, a cracking run.

21.8 miles and 5,623 ft - route on Strava

Note the steady pace.... apart from on the ups of course

Looking towards Ingleborough and Whernside from Pen y Ghent

Looking back at Pen y Ghent from Hull Pot

Ingleborough from the trudge up Whernside

Ribblehead Viaduct and Pen y Ghent in the distance

Descending Whernside now and heading for Ingleborough

Whernside and a toy town sized Ribblehead Viaduct from near the top of Ingleborough

Bird's-eye primroses

Nearly the full loop done!

Le Grande Tour de Mallerstang - 4th May 2015

Okay, I admit it, the Mallerstang Valley isn't actually within the (current) boundaries of the Yorkshire Dales National Park (but will be if the national park expansion plans eventually go through) but what a stunningly beautiful place it is, just over the border from North Yorkshire into Cumbria and directly south of Kirkby Stephen, and what a stunningly fantastic set of hills to run in!

Last Bank Holiday Monday me and Hester rocked up in gorgeous sunshine and parked at the southern end of the valley, right on the Yorkshire/Cumbria border in fact by Aisgill Moor cottages. Our mission, should we choose to accept it, was to run the complete skyline of the valley, up the west side and back down the east. 

The west side, going north, encompassed Swarth Fell Pike, Swarth Fell, Wild Boar Fell (the centre piece of the whole valley I think), High Dolphinsty, Little Fell and a scoot around the side of Birkett Common to ford the River Eden at the Pillow Mounds (apparently medieval artificial rabbit warrens). Coming back southwards on the east side firstly involved taking a (seemingly never-ending according to Hester) uphill south easterly line through a good two miles of swampy tussock grass to High Pike Hill and then  following the plateau like ridge top from there to High Seat, then Gregory Chapel before following the edge of Hangingstone Scar and a fantastically runnable quad bike track all the way to Hell Gill Bridge, and then finally following the farm track back to our starting point.

What a spectacular run!

From Aisgill Moor Cottages - 14.6 miles and 3,565 ft - route on Strava

Let le Grande Tour commence

A complete view of the valley  from the side of Swarth Fell Pike - Wild Boar Fell to the left and High Seat and Hangingstone Scar to the right

Looking towards Great Knoutberry, Blea Moor, Whernside and Ingleborough from Swarth Hill Pike

Hester putting her feet up on the way to Wild Boar Fell

Me leaving Hester to eat my dust (and take a picture)

Looking towardsHigh Seat from one of the cairns on Wild Boar Fell

Descending Little Fell

Yes I did bottle climbing all the way to the top...

On the ridge running towards High Seat now

Heading towards Hangingstone Edge with Swarth Fell and Wild Boar Fell across the valley