Day one - Clapham to Ingleborough

Good morning. I see you have all been blogging, that's good, I had a quick nosey round last night. What a surprise to see my mush on Lovely Grey's blog, and what a lovely write up. She has a wonderful way with words, I love the way she sculpures her posts, like a craftswoman with knife or a chisel, every post is a work of art. Not like my own, chuck a few words in a pot, mash them up and toss them onto the screen, ha ha. Check out her blog using the link on the side bar, haven't yet worked out how to put the linky in the post.

I'm back in my usual position, in front of the computer with Lilly cat on my knee. He is keeping me warm in this freezing cold house. I am fighting off the urge to put the central heating on, not easy when I have just enjoyed tropical temperatures in the hostel. I just had a thought, maybe I could live permanently in a hostel :0)

Anyway, back to the job in hand, what was I up to while I was away. First of all it was such a lovely morning when I set off, so I stopped off at a small pretty village called Clapham, a few miles past Settle on the A65. You may remember I walked to Settle when I hosteled at Malham, a few months back. I had it in mind to trek up to Ingleborough after I have read so much about it on http://www.walkingforum.co.uk/.
It is the second highest of the famous three Yorkshire peaks, at 2373 feet. There is some more information on the area with more pictures at
www.yorkshire-dales.com/clapham

Here I am standing on a decking area across the road from the New Inn, looking across at the stone bridge.

This is St James's church. Just as I was about to set off along came a group of school children all gabbling away excitedly, I decided to linger for a few minutes to let them get ahead of me.

Next to the church is where the waterfall comes down, which flows through the village.

There is a flatter walk alongside the Beck through Clapdale Woods to Ingleborough Cave, which the children took, I followed the wide steep track alongside.

Here I have a choice, climb the stile or stroll through the open gate. When you are out walking you must follow the country code of closing every gate you pass through, but in this instance the gate was already open and there was no livestock around so I decided to leave it as I found it. I love the many ways there are of building stiles, such a simple idea of combining the sleepers with the stone, though I think the bottom one could do with replacing.

Here I am at the entrance to the cave, the children are gathered on the grass waiting for their tour to begin. I haven't time to join them, I want to get to the top and back before we start losing daylight.

The next bit is through Trow Gill, a narrow gulley between the rockfaces.

Getting ready for the scramble up, there are a lot of loose rocks and stones to negotiate, best not to put a foot wrong, to fall would be a disaster.

A quick turn around to admire the view, beautiful.

The next interesting feature is Gaping Gill, a steep drop where all the water comes down off the hills and falls into a hole into the ground. This water then flows down through the caves, down the waterfall beside the church at Clapham, and under the bridge through the village.

The start as it comes down, I sat awhile and listened, almost silence except for the sound of rushing water....... pure heaven.

It gathers momentum....

Almost there as it tumbles over the rocks.......

And the final drop where it cascades down into the hole in the ground.

I'm watching the time now. As I was a bit late starting, I must not lose sight of my goal to get to the top. This bit is easy, the slabs are to protect the ground from millions of pairs of stomping feet. Thankfully there are only a few people about today, I would not like to be here at the weekend or holiday time.

Dunnit. Sadly the sun is not shining as brightly as it was when I set out, and I have had to put my jacket and wooly hat on (see pic on previous post). The mist has impaired the views, they are not good enough to take a photo, so you will have to imagine them. Perhaps refer to the web site I mentioned.

I must set off down, time is cracking on and I have another hour to drive to the hostel. I was hoping to descend by a different route, but I'd better not risk it, best to take the quickest way down and retrace my steps. Whew that was close, just got back to the car at 6.30pm as it started to get dark.

I haven't worked out any distances yet, I'll post them later, but for now that was a lovely walk.