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Aug 06 2011

Walk 34: Sponsored Yorkshire Three Peaks – Wu Tang


Hull Pot Beck

route: pen-y-ghent, whernside and ingleborough from horton-in-ribblesdale
Date:
6th August 2011
distance: 23.4 miles
ascent: 5,227 feet
time: Various – see below
walkers: Ben, Chris, Cleo, Dave, Dave H, Graham, Jane, Janet, John, Kate, Katie, Lucy, Matt H,
Matt S, Marc, Mark, Sandra, Shalini, Simon, Stav & Tony
You can still sponsor us – by clicking here

 

The story of…. Wu Tang, in the Support Team

I’d set my alarm the night before to The Proclaimers, I would walk 500 miles- just for the sheer irony of it. Today, I wouldn’t be walking anywhere! Not for a long time have I been woken up at some ungodly hour (4.45am I think) to not walk but I still felt slightly sick with nerves when I did wake up. We had lots to do before the bus came and luckily me and my boy were on the ball. I had made some sandwiches the night before for those people who thought it was way too early for breakfast so I didnt have that to do, so whilst Dave was driving to pick a couple of the poor unsuspecting ramblers up, I took everything outside so it could be loaded into the van when that arrived.

Beause my lovely husband is so organised, I was abit worried when he sent me a copy of the exact schedule of pick up points and time earlier in the week but I will give everyone their due, nobody was late for the bus to pick them up. We even arrived at Horton earlier than scheduled, thanks to the crazy driving of Dave.

Not everybody doing the walk got on the bus so we had to wait a while for the other ramblers to get there. As always with a big group there were a couple of latecomers so as everyone was setting off, myself and Tony B (my sandwich buddy for the day and also Beakys Dad) were sat at the bench outside the cafe filling in the last few names on the check in sheet which is crucial to mountain safety.

We waved everybody off and had a slow stroll back to the van – we decided to stick around at least until 9am (it was only half 7) to see if there was going to be any turnbackers. The Sherpa rang Dave’s mobile at about 8 o’clock whilst me and Tony were talking about whatever was in the newspaper at the time. He didn’t realised he hadn’t taken it with him but whilst I was on the phone, he told me it was possible there would be someone coming back to us.

Said person didnt arrive so we presumed she had stuck it out and carried on. We decided it was about the right time to drive from our spot down to Ribblehead, where the 1st check point would be so thats what we did.

We parked and Tony got himself a cheeky bacon butty from the stall there and we carried on chatting whilst he ate that. It was still sunny at this point so after he’d finished, we got everything ready and set the sandwiches, crisps, chocolate bars, bananas and hot water up so everything was there for when people got there………..

……. It was a very long hour and a half til this point. Not because Tony was boring- in fact I really enjoyed his company, I think it was more because I was expecting people and because they didnt seem to walk over the brow of that hill for what seemed like ages, thats why it seemed so slow.

The boys arrived first, what Tony called Group A (which is what I’ll call them from now on) and they stopped and had a sandwich.. Actually, thats not true- 1 member of Group A (Matt H aka DJ Shadow) had already stopped and got a hot dog from Hot & Tubby down the road, then he joined the queue and got a burger from the bacon butty lady where we were parked. Obviously he didnt fancy egg, tuna or cheese from us! By the time he’d finished eating his burger, Group A had already started to set off so he put down his unfinished hot drink (also purchased from bacon butty lady) because it was too hot for him to drink and jogged over the road to catch them up. Shortly after this, the heavens opened and everything was wet through.

Group B (lets call them that to continue with the theme- even though they werent really a group- just merely, not the first people to us and not the last either) appeared at various different times within an hour of Group A leaving. They were all still smiling, except 1 or 2 and I tried to do whatever I could to keep their spirits up, remembering what I felt like to get to this point only 6 weeks before. After Group B had left, it really started to rain and I was glad I wasn’t doing the walk this time. Actually I was really glad cos not long afterwards it thundered and lightninged…. Eek.

So by now, we only had G, Dave, Cleo, Kate & Stav to tick off the checklist…. Cleo turned up first but her knee was hurting so she got quickly into the dry, warmish van and we gave her some grub. About half an hour after that, G Dave & Stav turned up but not with Kate. Cleo had mentionned that she had text her at the first peak to say she had gone round and would see her at checkpoint 1 but that was 2 and a half hours ago and she still wasnt there. So when Dave turned up, everyone got into the van and we drove back to where we came so I could pop my head in the cafe to see if she had turned up there. Nope, she hadnt. So, then we thought she might have text Cleo again so drove back towards Settle to see if we could get a signal…. Got a signal, but no messages, so we drove back to Horton and stopped at the first pub we came to grasping at straws really. Thankfully there she was so we dropped her, Cleo and Stav off at the pub where we would be meeting later.

Then, we drove onto our second check point where Tony’s family (Beaky’s sister, neice and mum) were waiting for us. G and Dave set off up the track to start meeting and greeting people as they made the tricky descent from Whernside. Me and Tony got out of the van and set up again- it was nice to see Jane, Linda and Amelia and I spent a bit of time entertaining Amelia, (Beakys 3 year old neice) jumping in the not very big puddles with her. 4 of Group A arrived and set off not long after- they were way on target and everyone was upbeat. I had to give one person a little pep talk (though for the purposes of this, he shall remain nameless) but I think he appreciated it at the end. It was still only raining on and off now and the remaining stragglers of Group A turned up limping and clearly struggling but to be fair to them, 1 stopped and 1 continued. Group B was more together than Group A and they stopped and had a little chat and a drink and then pretty much all set off together. Only 1 other official walker dropped out at this point which is really good going I’m told.

So, we’d done our job…. we packed up the van, clambered back in and went back to Horton. Cleo, Kate & Stav had got a lift back with Stav’s husband so they werent there when we got there. All that was left to do now was to wait and greet the tired ramblers which is exactly what we did.

Final timings for everyone ranged from 9 and abit hours to just over 11 hours so everyone gets the option to pay to join the 3 peaks club. It was a really good day and everyone raised a fantastic amount of money for some amazing charities. It was really nice to help people out with the food and stuff but, and I never thought Id say this, next time I’ll walk please.

Wu Tang

 

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