Inglebourgh

So today it was Andy’s turn to choose where we were walking. His choice was Inglebourgh, one of the Yorkshire three peaks. We would be walking out of Clapham on a 10 mile route to the 723m peak.

After my boots came apart on Snowdon, I had invested in a pair of ‘Meindl Burma’ boots and I was still wearing them in, but I was having some issues with the fit.

I arrived at Andy’s house on time, but he was late up and rushing around with an arm full of gear. He quickly packed the last few pieces he needed into his rucksack and having thrown the gear in the car, we were soon motoring up the M66 heading for Yorkshire in the beautiful warm July sunshine.

Arriving in Clapham for the start of the walk, I parked in the main tourist car park. 
Both Andy and I started to change our footwear, then Andy realised he hadn’t brought his boots! In the rush to get his gear together, he’d forgotten to put them in my car.

Fortunately he was wearing trail shoes, not the flip flops Andy wears from time to time, so he was happy to walk in his shoes as we'd had dry weather and didn’t expect too much mud, I certainly wasn’t driving back for them. But the boot issues wouldn’t stop there.

We followed a path out of the narrow village lanes by Clapham Beck, a flat easy start towards Trow Gill passing Inglebourgh Cave. It was a busy route with a few folk walking along it.

The sunshine didn’t last long and it was now overcast, but thankfully the cloud stayed high, allowing good views from Inglebourgh summit.

Trow Gill is a wonderful little gorge with a very easy scramble at the top. Andy had no problems in his shoes. The gorge leads to open country at Clapham Bottoms.

We passed Gaping Gill. But due to being held up earlier with Andy’s late packing, and Andy needing to be home early evening, there wasn’t time to detour and explore the entrance to the pothole as we were late starting, which I was a little miffed about.

However, I had more concerns with my boots as we started the initial climb up to the cairn at Sware Gill Head.

My boots really started to feel tight on the sides, possibly with the weight of my rucksack I’m thinking my feet have more spread and the boot fitting now feels too narrow. 

On reaching the summit of Inglebourgh, excellent views out to Whernside in the north, Pen-y-ghent to the east, and great views out to erm.....Yorkshire. I didn’t know Yorkshire very well.

We got a chance to sit down and have some lunch in the summit shelter, a marvellous construction of a good solid wall with extra long stones protruding out providing seating.

Once eaten we set our bearings to NE from the trig point, you can very easily lose them on the very broad peak and end up walking off in the wrong direction. As Andy and I departed the plateau, a marshal, presumably part of Three Peaks Challenge officials in his bright luminous jacket stood by a check point station.

It was a reminder we were joining this well known route for a short while.

Now joining the Three Peaks route down the side of Simon Fell heading East, these paths we’d been on all day were well established ones, stoney and hard but unforgiving if your feet are sore, and my feet were getting pretty uncomfortable.

When Andy and I got to Nick Pott, we took the shorter option turning right, and heading for the limestone rock formations this place is famous for.

We’d been walking for 7 miles now and I really wish I’d forgotten my boots not Andy. We passed ‘Long Scar’ and we arrived at Trow Gill. The pain in my feet was getting too much 
I stopped, took off my boots and had two Paracetamol tablets.

We still had another 2 miles to walk to the car, so after a ten minute foot massage, my feet felt a bit better, until I put my boots back on, no blisters just hot spots under the foot......burning!!!

There is a long old Roman road from here walled both sides, It seemed to take forever to walk that 10th mile, it was the longest 2 miles I have ever done. An important lesson learned. I still have many more in front of me, I'm just hoping they're not all as painful as this one.

I was in too much pain to take any photos, but once the boots came off back in the Clapham car park, they really didn’t feel too bad, and I was able to drive without any problems, reuniting Andy back home with his boots on time. . 

Andy was fine in his shoes, not a lot of mud as we’d had some dry weeks. Just goes to show. The Meindl Burma boots were never worn again as they were returned to the store with a........fault.