The club headed to the Yorkshire Rambler’s club Lowstern Hut, just outside Clapham village in the Yorkshire dales for the November meet, and thanks to Louise for coordinating this one. A decent turnout with people bringing kit for whatever the weather allowed, including climbers, mountain bikers, fell runners and hillwalkers. Friday evening was the usual chatter of catching up with people, and planning the next day’s activities.
Saturday started as a beautiful autumn morning as we set off. Simon and Carmen headed out for a big walk over Ingleborough, then east over the limestone pavements before heading south and back to the hut through the Dales farmland. Peter, Louise and Mike ran the 3 peaks from the hut, picking up the route north of Clapham beck and clocking almost 33 miles by the time they returned 8 hours later. On the way up towards Whernside from RIbblehead they bumped into Donal, Ann and Peter who were pushing their mountain bikes up the bridleway before enjoying a cracking descent down into Dent dale and returning via Kingsdale. The rest of the group (Jayne, Marianna, Becky, Simeon and Dave) hiked Whernside and Ingleborough, finishing with pub stop at Ribblehead. Karl pottered in the valley, and stocked up with firewood for the evening.
Dinner was as usual tasty and filling. Karl cooked a delicious spicy lentil soup, this was followed by Louise’s veggie chilli and Marianna’s italian cake finished the meal off. The rest of the evening was spent resting weary legs by the fire and enjoying a wee dram.
Sunday started brightly, the majority of the group setting out for a walk over to Horton in Ribblesdale, then after lunch following the ribble way south by the river Ribble. Arriving at Helwith bridge the heavens opened, and the rest of the 15 mile hike became a bit of a March back in cold, wet conditions.
Simon, Carmen and Ann had headed west for a walk in the forest of Bowland, which by all accounts was a similar weather pattern to that closer to Clapham. Peri also got caught on her walk, keeping it local to Clapham and carrying out a bit of a ‘fungi foray’ on the way with plenty of Autumn mushrooms to discover. All arrived back mid afternoon to warm up, finish the left-overs, clear up the hut and head home to dry our kit out. Another great weekend despite the Sunday afternoon showers.
