Yorkshire Dales Walks
Pen-y-Ghent & Plover Hill
Date: 3rd July 2004
Distance: 7.7 miles
Ascent: 1320 feet
Time: Too long ago to remember!
With: Matt
Start Grid Ref: SD842714
Walk Summary:
A very windy walk visiting Pen-y-Ghent and Plover Hill before a long walk back along Silverdale Road.
Route Summary: Dale Head - Pennine Way - Pen-y-Ghent - Plover Hill - Upper Hesleden - Silverdale Road - Dale Head
Pictures:
1. Low cloud blowing over Pen-y-Ghent
2. Matt enjoying the weather on Pen-y-Ghent
3. Looking back at Pen-y-Ghent from the descent of Plover Hill
4. Fountains Fell
5. Pen-y-Ghent
Walk Detail: Initially this was planned as a much longer walk that would also take in Darnbrook and Fountain’s Fell but this plan was dropped half way through to the, shall we say, inclement weather.
This was one of the windiest days we've ever had walking. The way the cloud was blowing round the face of Pen-Y-Ghent it looked like the mountain had smoke billowing out of it. Unfortunately my camera at the time could simply not do it justice. Once we arrived at the point where the Pennine Way meets the path from Horton the wind really hit us and I very nearly gave up as it was difficult to even stand up.
Eventually we decided to go for it and fair ran up from that point occasionally ducking where cover allowed to avoid being blown off some of the steeper ledges. It certainly got my adrenaline pumping!! After resting under a wall at the top to catch my breath we walked along to the trig point. The photo I took of Matt at the trig shows how truly wretched the weather was.
From Pen-Y-Ghent we walked along to Plover Hill, unsurprisingly it was a little boggy in places but nothing too bad. The summit of Plover Hill is near a major intersection of walls and the summit itself is marked by a rather pathetically small pile of stones.
Descending Plover Hill towards Pen-Y-Ghent Gill we had to negotiate lots of walls and fences we had to get over. One particular fence corner we had to cross had also been colonised by waist high nettles.
By this time the weather had begun to clear a bit and when we finally managed to get to the road I managed to get some decent photos of Pen-Y-Ghent and Fountains Fell. I think this was the first walk we did after I had first come across a list of 2000ft mountains and we had decided we wanted to do all the ones in the Dales. It would be nearly six years before I came back to visit Plover Hill in better conditions.
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