| Great Whernside (704m) |
| Buckden Pike (702m) |
Peaks climbed : Great Whernside (704m), Buckden Pike (702m)
Total Distance : 21km, Total Ascent : 798m
We parked in Kettlewell and walked up through the village to emerge onto the moor. There is a helpful sign saying 'Hag Dyke' and 'Great Whernside'. It is a simple, if steep path to follow and was very wet in places. It heads up quite steeply reaching the half way point of the Hag Dyke Scout Hut. It's both half the distance and half the height gain so quite a moral boost. From there, the path gets rocky for a while and we also soon entered the low cloud. The summit takes a while as it flattens out for the last 30m of ascent so is some time coming. There isn't much at the actual summit other than a trig point and a man-made cairn which served as a shelter while we had a drink.
Getting to Buckden Pike involved a long walk along the ridge before descending left to cross a small road and over to a right trending path. This is followed for about three miles which seemed further as we still had no view of anything other than about 30 metres ahead. There were several false flats where we thought we must be close, but our altimeters showed us being far too low so it was nothing more than wishful thinking.
We passed the Polish Memorial Cross which I had read about so was able to relate the story of the crash and the sole survivor crawling to habitation by following the tracks of a fox.
At this point there was a 'recommended' route which we followed and were quite pleased that we did as it became a man-made slab path all the way to the summit.
There was a strong wind blowing so we didn't linger long, retracing our steps back to a previous stile, then bearing off to the right and heading downhill. Eventually we reached the head of the Gill, and the wind had dropped so we found a convenient place for lunch. It was still pretty cold so again, we didn't linger long and soon headed off following the path that headed away from the Gill and over a rise and down to Starbotton.
From there, we crossed the main road and picked up the Dales Way which took us the final two miles into Kettlewell and the finish.
