Whernside

County – North Yorkshire

Elevation - 736

Date – 27 March 2010

Distance: 13.5km

Elevation walked – 719m

Growing up in the north west of England I spent many weekends traipsing up mountains and hills, sometimes of my own free will, sometimes at the behest of a parent or teacher. I first came across the idea of “County Tops” in the 1968 Guinness Book of Records (I’m not that old, I got it from a jumble sale) and I wondered then how cool it would be to climb them all.

It is odd, then, that I didn’t climb my first County Top until I was 35, and even then I didn’t know I’d done so until a couple of days after (I mean, I knew I’d climbed it obviously…I was bloody knackered).

Whernside is one of the traditional Three Peaks (the others being Ingleborough and Pen-y-Ghent) and despite being the highest of the three it’s arguably the least well know, possibly because it’s a big bank rather than looking like an actual mountain.

Nelly shows us Whernside. Looking good Nell!

I’m in the fortunate position of having access to the second home of one of my best pal’s parents in nearby Dent. In March 2010 I drove up there to spend a weekend with my old school mates Nick, Dan and Nelly to combine some walking with a frankly ludicrous amount of beer.

One thing you need to realise about these lads is that nothing, literally nothing, is possible without the addition of an absolute shedload of beer. So a gentle Friday night post work catch up will always, always, result in the consumption of enough booze to fell a horse.

Our trip, then, began on a Saturday morning with somewhat fuzzy heads as we crossed the River Dee and began the long trek up to Whernside from the north. Sometimes with walking there’s an awful lot of trudging through soggy vegetation before you get to anything exciting, and that morning the general feeling of malaise was multiplied by the thirst of a hangover.

Nelly's hangover hadn't left him in prime fighting condition

Eventually the vegetation changed and the cloud lowered, and we came upon a pair of frozen lakes – Whernside Tarn – amidst an eerie air. At this point the drudgery began to shake off and we remembered that hill climbing is actually pretty ace, even though the low cloud now prevented epic views.

It was cold up here, and as we got higher up Nelly started to whinge - not just about his hangover this time, but about the fact he had massively underdressed for the conditions. Thankfully Nick was there to give him a lengthy Dad Lecture about how temperature drops the higher you climb, conditions can change quickly on a mountain, yadda yadda. Nobody said anything as Nick had the only map and we didn't want to upset him.

We climbed further to the ridgeline of Whernside and came upon quite thick lying snow, which intensified as we ascended and gave us the impression of Proper Adventure. At last we got to the summit whereupon Dan revealed our prize at the trig point – four bottles of beer.

Having necked the beer in the gale, we then faced the issue of the descent. The path down to Ribblehead was a straight line from the trig point, covered in deep snow. We mooched around looking for a safe route down before realising that there was really only one way.

With glee, we threw our feet in the air and landed gracefully upon our buttocks, sledging down the mountainside on our waterproofs and coming to a thrilling stop 200m downhill as the snow ran out. The only downside with such fun is the knowledge that if you want to repeat it then you have to climb all the way back up, and THAT wasn’t happening.

"OMG look at that amazing thing" "oh it's fog"

Instead we made our way down the valley floor and through the immense brickwork of the Ribblehead viaduct, stopping to imagine the shanty town of labourers who would have worked on these desolate hillside for years to hand-lay every one of those bricks.

By the time we reached the Sportsman’s Arms at Ribblehead we had covered over 13km and were ready for four pints of Black Sheep. And then four more. And why not another four whilst you’re at it?

Eventually the Settle-Carlisle train pulled into the Ribblehead station and we merrily made our way back to Dent, where some hero had left the bikes for us to roll downhill back to the barn. It was almost dark as we pulled our tired bodies through the door and cracked open the beers, and I tried not to focus on the fact that the train took nine minutes to cover the same distance…