Selside, 18-20 January 2013

Submitted by Andrew Williamson on Mon, 21/01/2013 - 19:23

While the rest of the country was struggling to soldier on under a blanket of snow, CUHWC went to the University of Leeds' Selside Centre in the Yorkshire Dales for the weekend. We managed to get there without too much problem, except for one car which ended up arriving at about 01.30. Pushing it free from the track outside the bunkhouse did make for an exciting start to the trip for those who were up late enough to be involved. While the weather wasn't exactly perfect, it was much better than the forecast. One group successfully completed the Three Peaks on Saturday (walk report below), while the rest of the trip participants ticked off each of them individually between them. Sunday saw similar conditions and a similar selection of walks.

Trip Participants

Andrew Williamson, Peter Kirkwood, Tom Ashton, Andrena Ball, Tom Owen, Paul Cook, Helen Phillips, Lilia Giugni, Philip Withnall, Thomas Leach, Rebecca Howard, Simon Williams, Jane Patrick, Joe Hobbs, Valerie Ashton, Paul Fox, Alex Elliott, Eleri Cousins, Hannah Lissaman, Thanatad Ruengsuksilp, Feyruz Yalcin, Reuben Newsome & Jonas Frey

Walk Reports

The Three Peaks (not quite) Challenge (PW)

Where we did all three peaks in around 9h40m, in the snow and the dark. We were silly.

Philip, Joe, Andrena, Peter, Becky & Reuben

The first thing to note is that Peter's Nuttall obsession led him to get lost on top of Ingleborough. The rest of the group were mildly concerned. The second thing to note is that Whernside, Ingleborough, and Pen-y-Ghent are all needlessly far apart. We did Whernside first, then Ingleborough, then Pen-y-Ghent. This worked well. The wind on the ridge on Whernside was 30-40mph and made sideways icicles on the fence/wall on the ridge (which we walked on the exposed side of for no good reason) and on our bags.

Pen-y-Ghent with additional Snow-related Capers (HP)

Helen, Eleri, Andrew, Tom O, Alex & Tee

We walked to Pen-y-Ghent via a nice walk alongside the River Ribble, but more important than this were the entertaining distractions along the way, namely:

Snow-Angel Production
Eleri's snow sheep outline / Eleri floundering in the snow in a most amusing manner
The Playing of Pooh Sticks in Horton. Alex had never experienced this before - deprived childhood much?!
Snowball fights which never really turned into fights
Icicle fun - Tom O: "do you want to hold it? ... Eleri: "yes," and proceeds to describe anatomy while we all titter [*it seems Helen likes this word 'titter' - AW] behind her
Snow face impression in deep snow drift and persuading a random walker to place her face in deep snow (and make a snow angel)
A deep discussion about why female humans have such enlarged mammary glands, which was repeated twice that day
Buying loo paper (as soft as Labradors) from the café in Horton
Revolting and leaving Andrew to walk on the road by himself
Horse love - lots of horse love! Especially for Tom O

Clapham & Ingleborough (PW)

Philip & Tom L

Route: Selside - Clapham - Ingleton Cave - Gaping Gill - Little Ingleborough - Ingleborough - Selside

Clapham was a gaunt village with some arbitrary tunnels and a noisy church. It has a natural-looking man-made waterfall in the middle because the owner of the manor house felt they needed to compensate for something. (Don't know what - the Tourist Information board didn't go into details.) Gaping Gill and the gorge south-east of it were nice; the latter (whose name I've forgotten) had a large, frozen stream, (not) running down its head, which was cool. Ingleborough was as Ingleborough always is. Windy, windy, windy and stuck in a cloud. Nice views of snowy fields on the way up. Sideways views of Tom being buffeted around the path on the ridge. No views on top. Fun snow drifts though. We then pezzed it down off Ingleborough back to the bunkhouse and demolished lots of biscuits. Tom thinks it's acceptable to dunk custard creams in tea. We don't speak anymore.

Quotes

Tom L: We saw a train! That was really exciting. I love trains!
Joe: But were they the wrong strong feelings?
Peter (on going around the 3 Peaks again the following day in the opposite direction): That's a great idea - why don't we do that tomorrow?