Spoilt for Choice

With 42 events to choose from during 7 days of the Ride2stride Walking Festival it's impossible to get to everything. I managed to squeeze in daily walks, 2 of the three talks and music most nights and although it is technically possible to go to 18 different things that was exhausting enough. Exhausting but totally exhilarating. 

Here's a snapshot of Ride2stride 2015.

Climbing Pen-y-ghent

A grouse nest on the side of the track

Inside the Hoffman kiln

High Cup Nick

Rare breed piglets on Mearbeck Farm

Live music every night

Heading down to Cleatop Park Wood

I've just started reading A Year of Living Danishly, an account of a woman's move to Denmark and her attempt to discover what makes it the happiest country in the world to live. Already she has identified an appetite for pastries and a healthy work-life balance as most significant with most Danes leaving work promptly in mid afternoon and not thinking about it again until the next morning, preferring to concentrate their time and energies on family, friends and leisure activities.

Recently my family contact has been reduced to text messaging, my friends have forgotten what I look like and my only leisure activity is a self medicating glass of red at the end of yet another 16 hour day.

Working from home with the Skyware office overlooking the garden and a laptop on the kitchen table means it's hard to switch off. A quick check of emails while the kettle boils, a last look at a chapter before bed, I've even found myself downstairs at 4 am because I've woken up and remembered something I'd forgotten to do. 

Thankfully it's not always like this. The intense pressure over the last few weeks has been because we've a new book, Heart of the Pennine Way, due out on April 24th, the 50th Anniversary of the start of the Pennine Way AND the annual Ride2stride Walking Festival starts 4 days later.

The book is at the printers now and the festival programme is out in the world so there's not much more I can do now, except try to remember how to relax and maybe eat more pastries.

Save the Date



Setting off on the first walk of Ride2stride 2012

It's just a year since half a dozen of us met in a pub in Skipton to talk about whether there was any point in trying to organise a walking festival along the Settle Carlisle Railway Line. The Western Dales are great walking country, dominated by the Three Peaks and very accessible by train from both Leeds and Carlisle. We decided it must be worth having a go and Ride2stride was born.




Walkers stripping off when the sun came out this year (yes - it did!).

 

Tomorrow the same six are meeting again (this time in Settle) and what a difference a year makes.

No more shall we/shan't we, can we/can't we, will anyone even come?

We know Ride2stride 2012 worked - pretty well really considering it was our first go at it. One or two walks were poorly attended, one or two groups had to leg it to catch connecting trains or buses. A train broke down, a bus timetable changed at the last minute but overall we were pretty happy with the results. Happy enough to have another go.

Ride2stride 2013 is taking place from Tuesday April 30 to Monday May 6.

The programme is coming together nicely and highlights include:

Tuesday April 30

A chance to experience Ribblesdale's industrial and farming heritage with a 6 mile circular walk from Settle, led by Colin Speakman and visiting the Hoffmann kiln and Tom Lord's working hill farm at Lower Winskill.

 

For the more energetic there's a 10 mile circular walk, also from Settle, returning via Giggleswick Common.

Musicians playing in the Station Inn at Ribblehead last year.

Both walks return to Settle station then go on to Giggleswick where there's live music in the Craven Arms from 4pm.

Wednesday May 1

Two great circular walks from Appleby station, a 10 miler along the riverside to Rutter Force and a strenuous 14 mile climb up to High Cup Nick which includes some boulder scrambling. Back to the Midland Hotel next to Appleby station for more live music.

Rutter Force - the upside of all the rain.

Thursday May 2

Repeating last year's popular combo Dr David Johnson, Chairman of Ingleborough Archaeology Group and well respected archaeologist will lead a walk into Crummack Dale followed by a talk in the evening on the archaeology of Malham Moor.

Last year's archaeology walk.

Friday May 3

The great Bill Mitchell, who for many years edited the Dalesman, will give a talk called "Thunder in the Mountains" which tells the story of the building of Ribblehead Viaduct. Anyone wanting to visit the site of the shanty town around the viaduct can do so on guided tours on Wed May 1 and Mon May 6.

Needs no introduction.

For walkers there are 2 walks from Garsdale to Hawes, a strenuous 10 miles and a moderate 6 miles. Both return to Garsdale station by bus.

Saturday May 4

Saturday is gearing up to be very busy with  5 walks planned so far including a very strenuous 19 mile circular from Settle to Malham and back led by the Long Distance Walkers Association. Expect a fast pace.

A gentler option is a 7 mile walk from Horton-in-Ribblesdale to Ribblehead where there's music in the Station Inn till midnight.

Sunday May 5

There's a climb up Pen-y-ghent and a riverside walk from Settle to Horton-in-Ribblesdale. Tonight's music is in the Crown in Horton.

Monday May 6

The last day. Two nice walks planned for today - an eleven mile circular from Settle via 3 waterfalls and a gentler stroll around Settle and Giggleswick following in the footsteps of the composer Elgar.

This is just a taste - there's likely to be over 30 events in all and they're still coming in. There's a draft programme of what's on so far at www.ride2stride.org.uk

In the meantime follow us on facebook at www.facebook.com/Ride2stride and please tell your friends.

So - Will we do it again? Part 2

The quick answer is maybe, possibly, I think so, probably, yes!!

The Ride2stride Festival went better than we could have dreamed of.

Me stood on a bench trying to get a bit of 'ush

When I arrived on Settle station that first morning there were already walkers milling about and an intrepid bunch of singers huddled together for warmth in the waiting room. The train came in - bang on time - and off they poured. Young and old - ok mostly old (er) it was a working day after all, male and female, some with sticks and some with dogs and all of them there for Ride2stride. The singers came out of the warmth and gave us a rousing chorus of "Raindrops keep falling on my head" and off we went. 

Looking for waterfalls

One walk set off to search for waterfalls and the other to head for Elaine's tearoom at Feizor. I was backmarker with the second group and within half an hour had learned my first big lesson of the week. The word "Easy" means different things to different people. In a programme that included a treck over Mallerstang and a 16 mile ascent of Whernside some of us thought that 7.5 miles with a tearoom pretty much qualified as "Easy". To anyone not familiar with the limestone countryside around Settle that first clamber out of Stackhouse could have been the north face of the Eiger.

Second big lesson of the week was that a little more direction to walk organisers WOULD have been a good thing. Ok, I was wrong, I admit it. The walks that followed a very simple pattern - meet at station x off train y and walk to z all worked incredibly well with good numbers and hardly any hiccups (sorry everyone who was on the train that broke down and had their walk delayed by hours). The walks with more complex arrangements of buses and trains or meeting to catch trains to walk back to the number you first thought of were less well attended.

Music at Ribblehead

The music in the pubs was wonderful and turned the whole week into a Festival instead of just a list of walks. Lesson number 3 - make sure that the musicians aren't heading for their break just as the walkers arrive in the pub!

An archeological walk around Ingleborough

What else - well the talks were lively and well attended. The linked events - a walk during the day to look at something followed by a talk about it worked really well - even if one of the walk leaders did spend a bit TOO long looking with the result that his group had to jog the last mile for their train (see what I mean about a bit of direction for walk leaders). The weather improved as the week went on and as you can see we were in fine form by Sunday.

Resting in the sun

Finally the people - walkers came from all over including New Zealand, USA and Stoke on Trent. People stayed in cottages and pubs, in B&Bs and hotels and as the week went on we all began to recognise each other as we met on different walks.

So - will we do it again? It's a big question. Ride2stride is either a one-off or it's an annual event so saying yes to will we do it again is actually saying yes to a lifetime of Settle-Carlisle Walking Festivals. My feeling is that it IS worth making it an annual event but in order to do so we need a little bit more structure and a few more people involved with the organising. Any volunteers? We're meeting on Friday to have a chat about it so I'll let you know.

I think we got us a festival



Walkers on Hangingstone Scar, Mallerstang



A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the twinkle in our eye that was ride2stride: the Settle - Carlisle Walking Festival. Well it's really happening!

A little group of us met to talk about the idea and decide whether it really was a goer or just a figment of mine and Tony's wine-addled brains and one of the first things we asked ourselves was "what would success look like?"

We decided if over the course of 7 days - May 1st to 7th next year - we could offer 12 walks from different stations between Settle and Carlisle, 3 music events somewhere along the line and 2 talks on relevant subjects we'd think we'd cracked it.

Well - so far we've got 16 walks ranging from easy strolls around bluebell woods to strenuous hikes over Mallerstang Edge; 3 guided walks around the construction site of Ribblehead Viaduct and Settle Old Town; talks on the part that railways have played in getting people from the grimy urban centres to the heart of the Dales AND music in the station pubs at the end of most walking days.

Jeff and his singing partner Di

Jeff, from the 3 Peaks Folk Club, is setting up the music sessions. He's an organisational genius who's middle name should be "Sorted". In fact I'm seriously considering offering him to Italy for a couple of weeks.

You can follow our progress at http://www.ride2stride.org.uk/