Fell walking

I decided to do walk 3 today, 12 miles instead of 9 miles for walk 2. I heard rumours the weather was to improve. The rumours turned out to be incorrect, however it was another great day of hiking. We started by walking along a valley below a high ridge.

Then up one edge of the ridge until we got to Rylstone Cross, celebrating 50 years of Queen Victoria's reign. Speaking of rain, there was lots of it. As we walked along the ridge, a highland moor to our right, stone wall to our left, we were mostly walking in a stream and peat bog, with a heavy mist settled over the valley below us.

It didn't bother me because I consider this classic fell walking. A sunny day would be just wrong in this environment. Plus, my skin doesn't take well to too much sun. Rylstone Cross:

We sheltered in the rocks above for lunch as it was quite windy.

Lots of interesting rock formations on the ridge. Next stop was the Cracoe War Memorial. The ridge is so long that you move from one dale, Rylstone, to another, Cracoe, each a valley enclosing a river by that name. The war memorial in the misty distance.

As we dropped down off the ridge, in our squelchy boots, the mist receded. Here is a hunter's lodge on the way down.

The hunters are after pheasants, raised and released for sport. If you can call it sport. High on the ridge we had seen a flock of grouse startled into flight nearby. Also a lot of stonechats. I think the grouse are lovely, with their mottled feathers and red eyeliner. While we didn't get the views from the top, we certainly enjoyed them on the way down.

My hiking companions were a French woman, Brigitte; a Dutch woman, Isabelle; and a wordless man from Essex, Jeff. Our guide was the lovely Wendy, originally from Yorkshire but world travelled. Her last big hike was in Bolivia. She is so buoyant that I knew she'd keep me going if I got tired. But I held up pretty well. My three days of 9-mile hikes made the 12-mile hike quite doable.

HF Holidays, my travel company, feeds us really well, and that helps.

As we approached the valley floor we went through the charming village of Thorpe (all villages here are charming).

Then to Linton falls. The walk had begun in Linton.

Then we went over a bridge and up a walkway to Grassington. Our walk took 20 minutes longer than expected – we got off to a slow start – so we had no time to explore Grassington, where the current version of All Creatures Great and Small is filmed.

Home, shower, bed for 20 minutes, then the walk talk (walks 1, 2, 3 described). Then dinner. Then we watched the semi final of the Euros. Interesting in that half the audience was Dutch, half English – mirroring the players on the field. England won 2-1.

10 July