*Bleep Bleep!*
…
*Bleep Bleep!*
*confusion*
*Bleep Bleep!*
*Blearily look at time on clock*
*Bleep Bleep!*
*Disbelief*
*Bleep Bleep!*
*Movement on a geological speed*

This was the scene at a most surprising hour of a Saturday morning a month ago, when I was having second thoughts about agreeing to come along to Berry’s first outing at a One Day Event. Despite having heard about Eventing for a few years, and been along to a couple of international scale events at places like Bramham and Burghley, this promised to be an interesting day out. To set the scene for the viewers at home, it goes a little something like this: You take a horse and a rider, take them both along to a formally organised Event where, along with dozens of others, they compete in the three disciplines of Dressage, Show Jumping and Cross Country. The ultimate challenge, as it were, for the skill, fitness and partnership of the horse and rider.

Thankfully it turned out to be a nice sunny day for it, without much wind so my Tilley Hat stayed put.

The logistics involved in attending something like this seemed quite involved, but aren’t much to write home amount, unless you enjoy 6am starts or spending an hour or two towing a horse trailer around the countryside, or making sure that you’ve got all the saddles and other paraphenalia ready to grab at the right time. We knew we were getting to the right place when we joined a steady stream of other horse transport heading in the same direction.

There were a series of large fields set up as parking, which was the first indication of the scale of how many people compete in these events. People were arriving every which way, deploying trailers and horses and generally setting up camp. Jokes about women drivers would have fallen on very deaf ears, the riders were mostly young and female and they generally did the driving, be it a car and trailer, brand new 3.5t campervan style apparatus or full on 10 tonne HGVs. Our arrival was more akin to the coal powered truck from ‘One of our dinosaurs is missing’ but there were a few big and shiny 40′ affairs that were much closer to the high tech transport in ‘Universal Soldier’.

It was clearly a day out for all the family, either because it was fun or because the rider wasn’t old enough to drive yet or because competing ran in the family, people seemed generally chatty, provided they weren’t late for their start time or trying to quickly change both their uniform and their horse’s tack within the same 10 minutes.

This was an Unaffiliated affair, but it still had all the elements of a proper event, from the commentators box with vintage sports car parked outside, to the butty wagon making sure everybody had a steady supply of bacon and cheap tea. Even though it’s as far from the UEFA cup final as a sunday league country final, it still had people travelling from all over the place.

I can’t quite decide whether I like the idea of Dressage or not. On one hand it’s a contrived torture test that requires the rider to memorise a series of choreographed sequences of movements that come from a book of other very similar series of movements. I would really not like to have to quantitatively judge a class of 30-odd horses all trying to do the same thing, it’s bad enough trying to keep some contrast between 6 interviews over a day. On the other hand, it’s a precise and measurable test of a horse’s deportment and a rider’s control that presumably makes for very good training.

Dressage

Show jumping’s ok though, each round is over in less than a minute and is more fun to watch because there’s the measurable success of how many poles the horse knocks down on his way past as well as the course builder and the clock to beat. It’s generally in a small area and is where the spectators generally gathered, often to the annoyance of the professional photographer for the day. This was a good opportunity to test out my new camera, it doesn’t (yet) have a terribly long lens, but its rapid fire mode means you can take series of photos like this:

Finally, if you haven’t been eliminated yet, there’s the cross country course. This is similar to show jumping but the jumps are solid (so you’re landing in an undignified heap if you hit them rather than just getting four faults) and it’s over a much longer distance so your horse and rider have got to be much fitter. There’s also a wider variety of jumps to contend with, including the dreaded water. This is what everybody wants to do because it’s fun, dangerous and looks cool on TV. It’s also the expensive bit, which is why most of the obstacles are named after their sponsors. The commentator must feel like a bingo caller with things like “and there sets off Number 37, with Jane Smith riding A Rather Contrived Horse Name the Third”, “getting good clearance over Toadally Clean Log Roll at One” and “looked twice at the Harwood Organic Vegetables Hazel Brush at Six”.

Berry going Cross Country

When I was walking back to the parking area after Berry had finished (it made me grin when Berry’s name, number and rider was announced over the PA system, Ma Poneh!) there was a perfectly calm announcement “Be aware, loose horse at Four”. Next thing I knew there was a dozen people in yellow jackets sprinting in that direction, followed by two kids on a quad bike and then a roar of a busy V8 as the St John’s 4 wheel drive ambulance crested a rise with all four wheels off the ground. All was fine as it happens, but it was still dramatic.

We didn’t win any cups that day but it was a very promising first Event and was fun to match and to see what all the work is for. I’m still not convinced that it was worth the 9 hours of gubbins, but it’s better than a similar amount of messing about for a 60 second trip round a show jumping course.

Map

Graph

Yesterday was a glorious day to be out walking in the Dales in one of the areas I know best. I don’t tend to get out to Ribblesdale very often because it’s about 2 hours drive away and there are other equally nice areas of the Dales to explore closer to home.

The route starts in the National Park carpark in Clapham. At the time of writing, it costs £3.50 per car per day, which I think is a fair donation to the Park. Whilst the group assembled, we had an impromptu lesson in how to turn a tree into a hedge, by bending the branches horizontal, growing out the newly vertical shoots and then bending those down again, repeating until you’ve got the shape you’re after. Apparentely it works with most trees, not just ash and willow, although cherry is too brittle to get away with it.

Layering

The walk starts very gently, steadily gaining height through the woods alongside Clapham beck. You can pause at the shop at the Ingleborough show cave for a last ice cream before the path breaks out into the moorland at the top of Trow Gill. My new camera was earning its keep both along the lake and during the easy scramble up through the Gill and into the rolling hills of Clapham Bottoms. The sky was hazy, but clear enough to see the summits of the hills around, so often the peaks of Pen-y-Ghent, Whernside and Ingleborough are shrouded from view by the cloud.

Trow Gill

This area is sheltered from the wind and the baking sun was certainly making its presence felt on a few of us, fleeces, gloves and jumpers were being stowed at every turn. This area is very popular with climbers, both above and below ground, I wouldn’t have fancied carrying full caving gear along in that heat.

Gaping Gill

We weren’t along whilst pausing for lunch in the natural hollow by Gaping Gill, watching the steam rising out of the depths to the sound of the water trickling past.

The wind returned strongly once we left the shelter and started up the ascent to Little Ingleborough, the going was well paved underfoot and our merry band spread out into the tortoises and the hares. Some consider the views from Little Ingleborough to be superior than from Ingleborough itself because it doesn’t have the same plateau limiting the horizons. The rocky area lends itself well to making shelters from the prevailing winds, which we were plenty happy to make use of whilst the rest of the group wandered up the hardest of the day’s climbing.

The last leg along the ridge to Ingleborough’s plateau was easy going under foot, cold, but with some big long views across the fells to distract us from the elements. It was as popular as ever, with walkers going every which way, from Duke of Edinburgh training groups to Three Peakers passing through. There was a queue of people getting their photos taken at the trig point, although jaws dropped in amazement all round as two of our Walking Club got engaged there! For the second Saturday in a row, my camera’s rapid fire mode was handy.

Whernside and Ribblehead Viaduct

The lack of clouds were nice when we left the plateau heading south of Simon Fell back towards Horton-in-Ribblesdale, it’s all too easy to miss the various paths from the top. Although ‘accidents’ do happen and the Hill Inn at Chapel Le Dale is one of the few places I know that serves Riggwelter on tap.

The area’s geology comes to the surface at the Sulber limestone pavement, although we followed a surprisingly well marked track around to its West. Be careful if you stray across the open moorland to try to cut the corner off, there are bogs, peat mosses and plenty of pot holes to take you by surprise.

Ingleborough

The walk finishes along one of the more tedious sections I can think of, the very appropriately named Long Lane. An number of cyclists bounced past us down its long, straight and rocky descent back to Clapham.

We weren’t in much of a hurry, so took a good six and a half hours to walk the 17km or so. I’ll upload the photos to my website properly at some other point, for now though you can get a few from the slideshow I’ve uploaded to Everytrail:

Yesterday turned out to be one of the first days of spring and a great day for a walk in the Yorkshire Dales, Wharfedale to be exact. I’ve approximately sketched out the route on the map, but it’s not my usual GPS track because my Nokia N97 has once again proved that it’s worth its weight in sawdust, taking just the three hours to lock onto the satellites that my bluetooth GPS saw within about 20 seconds.

Route

The route starts at the good car park at Yorkshire Water’s Grimwith Reservoir, plenty of spaces on the hard standing and recently built toilets, I’m guessing it gets quite a lot of visitors in the summer months. We then proceeded anti clockwise around the Reservoir and then down the track to the B6265.

view over Wharfedale

Along the road for half a kilometre or so until a left turn onto a footpath at Bank Top, the path goes across the field and downhill, watch for the yellow painted post in the middle of the field to avoid wandering too much of the farm and worrying the sheep.

Grimwith Reservoir

This path skirts the back of Hebden village and in short order deposits you at the reasonably well known suspension bridge, the stepping stones are also perfectly servicable if it’s too bouncy for your personal tastes, which a little Jack Russell demonstrated for us at a fast run.

Hebden Suspension Bridge

You’re now on the Dales Way running down the banks of the Wharfe so it’s very flat going, the poured concrete path being wheelchair accessible, although I’m not so sure about going up the slopes to overlook Loup Scar, which is apparently famous for being where a local murderer disposed of a body.

Loup Scar

The Dales Way gets remarkably busy later on in the year, you often find yourself walking elbow to elbow with strangers, which isn’t everybody’s cup of tea and buns. The village of Burnsall is very well kept and has some big stone buildings and a bridge that are quite photogenic when the sun is bright, even at this time of the year the village was full of cars parked all over the place. The pubs were very busy.

Burnsall Church

We couldn’t stop to try the beers though, we wouldn’t have started again, because we had the second half of the walk to do before dusk set in and our cars were locked in for the night. The path is still easy to folllow down the bottom of the hill from Appletreewick, after which it’s time to leave the Wharfe behind and turn North East towards Skyreholme.

The Wharfe

Wharfe

Follow the road up nearly as far as Parcevall Hall, where the tea rooms were still shut for Winter and take the footpath headed North towards Trollers Gill.

towards trollers gill

This pretty canyon is where you regain much of the height lost earlier in the way, but you don’t notice it because you’re carefully choosing your steps between all the rocks and stones.

trollers gill

trollers gill

At the top, we paused for a poetry recital from our group’s resident historian, even the wind died down to listen to his oration. Some passersby paused to bemusedly listen, who just shook their heads at our explaination that we were so well equipped we’d even packed the poetry about the valley we’d just walked through.

towards Simons Seat

From there it was a reasonably straight and thankless half hour back across the moors past Fancarl Crag to the carpark, although turning round there was a good view back across the valley to Simon’s Seat. This looked very close by, even though it was 4km away and 100m higher up and the valley between would disappoint anybody hoping to climb it easily.

A good day’s exercise, weighing it at a little over 12 miles. Chopping off the lap of the water to start with would cut it down to a wholly managable 8ish miles.