Yorkshire 3 Peaks Challenge
19 Jul 2025The Challenge
The Yorkshire 3 Peaks consist of Pen-y-Ghent (694m), Whernside (736m) & Ingleborough (723m), and the walking routes between them mean an overall hike of about 24 miles.
It’s a massive achievement to complete the hike, but some consider the event should be completed in 12 hours.
According to my watch, I completed the hike in 11 hours, 42 minutes, 37 seconds.
SHINE
I was raising funds for SHINE - my just giving page
SHINE is a wonderful charity that has offered advice & very useful information to my daughter about Spina Bifida. They are a small charity, UK based, and when you’re searching for answers about Spina Bifida or Hydrocephalus theirs is the site to visit.
SHINE listed the event as one of their fundraising events - enter through the SHINE website, and you pay a small fee and agree to raise a minimum sum in fund raising, and you then receive their help and support.
Overlimits
SHINE arranged for https://overlimits.co.uk/ to provide the safety information prior to the event, and support on the day. I highly recommend them.
Overlimits monitored the weather conditions, and the forcast was for probably electrical storms (lightning!) probably starting in the afternoon. The team at Overlimits decided that the starting point should be moved from Horton in Ribblesdale to Ribblehead. This meant we would climb the two highest peaks early in the day (Whernside & Ingleborough), and finishing with the long lowland walk back to the starting point - I’m no expert but this struck me as sound thinking! - the safety team would be monitoring the situation, and if at any time there was any suggestion of lightning on the mountains, the safest option would be taken (don’t go up there!).
I carried out a recce. of the start the day before the event - weather was a bit different!
Ribblehead Viaduct on a sunny day - Whernside in the background.
In the event, there was lots of rain on the day, but no electrical activity.
On the Day
Because I was essentially on my own, and couldn’t be sure of who I would find on the route I decided that the safest option was to dress for, and carry equipment for, a hike. My plan was to try to find others about the same speed. I also wasn’t entirely happy that I wasn’t going to suffer problems with any of a number of bits of my body that are wearing out!
I knew that https://overlimits.co.uk/ were providing marshals on the route, and I was pleased to see that they were all clearly marked, and each had an allocated pace they walked at - some may have been running, because they seemed to set off with the faster participants.
It wasn’t easy! It rained most, if not all, of the day, and it was humid - wear the waterproof and sweat, or don’t wear the waterproof, you still sweat but the rain didn’t make you cold. Some of the hiking involved being on hands and knees and scrambling up rocks. It wasn’t always easy to see the exact route, and on Pen-y-Ghent I think I made my own route near the top as I couldn’t see which of the piles of rocks was the one I should be climbing over - got very muddy hands.
I started near the back, and slowly until I felt sufficiently ‘warmed up’ to increase my pace. By the time I reached the top of Whernside I had overtaken many people, and spotted one of the marshals who seemed to be going at about the right pace. There were also several other participants with a similar pace to mine.
Navigation was mainly fairly simple as the route was well marked, most of the way. I was carrying a handheld GPS with a map and .gpx route on it, which I consulted in places where there seemed to be any doubt. I also had the route on my phone, but knew my phone would not keep going all day if used for navigation - it’s also not built to spend all day in the rain, so it spent most of the day in a plastic bag to keep it safe. The GPS was very useful on a couple of the mountain peaks, as the cloud had come down and in places visibility was down to about 60 metres / yards. It was also nice to be able to see my average speed etc on the GPS so I could tell if I was likely to finish in the 12 hours time which was my target.
Despite the weather, I enjoyed my day, and had a terrific sense of achievement in finishing - finishing in less than 12 hours was an additional bonus. The pint of beer in the Station Inn at Ribblehead was very, very welcome! I met & chatted with many nice people on the route - all were raising funds for very worthwhile charites, and their back stories were inspiring - thank you all, and to the team from https://overlimits.co.uk/.
Me at the end, resplendent in a dry ‘T’ shirt I’d carefully carried in a plastic bag.
A few photo’s from round the route.
