I was away early and checked on the girls just after 7:30am. I wanted to make sure they were up sharp and ready to go, as I knew they had their biggest day ahead of them and were bound to find it tough. From the look of the sky, I could tell it was going to be a scorcher - not a cloud in the sky.
After helping the group get sorted a bit, I left them to pack up camp and headed back Hawes to grab some breakfast. After a bacon roll and a couple of coffees, I managed to blag a lift up to Butter Tubs. Because I knew that the girls were going to find it a tough day, my plan was to walk with them as much as possible today so hitching a lift meant that I could leave the car in Hawes. Before heading up the initially steep slopes and out onto Thwaite Common, I paused to peer into the massive sinkhole - an amazing sight.
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| Peering into the Butter Tubs sinkhole, Yorkshire Dales |
It was a stunning day and I had great views in every direction. I was soon on the summit and chilled for a while, as I waited for the girls to appear. To my delight, I had plenty of company; a few other assessors and their respective groups were passing over the same top at various points that lunchtime. Looking Northeast through my binoculars back down the Pennine Way, I spotted group after group approaching. Unfortunately none met the description of my girls.
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| Looking Northeast from the summit of Great Shunner Fell, Yorkshire Dales |
Eventually, looking rather knackered, the girls arrived at the summit and slumped down to eat their lunch. They said they had found the path out of Thwaite quite steep and very hard going. I tried to cheer them up by telling them that the climbing was over for the day, but it this statement didn't seem to bring them any obvious comfort.
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| The group walking across the summit of Great Shunner Fell, Yorkshire Dales |
The next leg of their route was following the flat plateau to the Northwest and along to the boundary line running along Hugh Seat and Little Fell. This leg wasn't on a path so it was perfect to practice the art of walking on a bearing. Unfortunately visibility could not have been much better, so I had to get the girls to imagine that they were walking in the mist and try to look at their compass as much as possible. At this point however, I could sense very quickly that they were far too tired to care about my ramblings and a lesson in navigation. Progress was painfully slow; so in the interest of hoping to reach camp before dark, I quickly took up the lead. As if things weren't already slow, the next hinderance was the horrible peat hag that we had to negotiate for the next 4km! It was some of the most complex terrain I had come across and we had numerous short steep sections of ascent and descent - but not quite enough to warrant a contour on the 1:50k map. This unpleasantness proved a little too much for a couple of the group and they sat down at one point sobbing to each other. A brief respite and some words of encouragement from the others soon saw them back on their feet again.
The girls were totally wiped by the time we reached the path that lead the way to their campsite at Moorcock. They were also running low on water so I told them to get the purification tablets out and fill up from the stream. It was the home stretch now but it was a real struggle to motivate them and push them on towards camp - it was almost 7pm when we began pitching tents.
Jamie arrived shortly in the minibus and we headed back to Hawes for some grub. An excellent day on The Fells - the girls had done well and will hopefully sleep well knowing that they've got an easy final day tomorrow.
