I was feeling reflective this morning thinking about all the amazing walks we did in 2024. We completed the Dales 30 and also succeeded in getting in some additional walks as well.
Here’s the origin story of our walks and highlights of 2024.
March 2024
We adopted Henry from the Dog’s Trust and wanted to give him some good times because he’d had a poor start to his life.
Henry on his first wild walk with us on Ilkley Moor. I love Ilkley Moor. It has to be one of my favourite walks that’s close to where we live.Flamborough Head Walk. A great 20k walk around the coast. Henry loved the beach.
April 2024
We introduced Henry to Hagrid, Rachel’s dog. They became great friends and meant we all started walking together.
Thruscross reservoir. A circular walk around the reservoir that’s 7km and not that far from Leeds.
May 2024
We walk our first mountain. Then because we liked it we did another 2 mountains in May
Our first mountain Buckden Pike (702m). Legend has it that Buckden has the best views of the Dales. I cannot corroborate this legend.Great Knoutberry Hill (672m) was our second mountain. We had good weather for this one. It has some of the largest stiles I’ve ever encountered. I wouldn’t recommend this walk if you have a big dog.Great Shunner Fell (716m). We started in the afternoon on this walk as the rain was awful in the morning. This walk introduced me to 20 minute mountain miles so we could get to the pub for food before it closed.
June 2024
We got serious in June and did 6 mountains. Granted 3 of them happened on the same day.
Fell Head (640m). This one was steep. I felt like I was dying walking up it. No trig either, but there is a cairn. We then walked along the Coll to The calf (676m). This has a good trig, but because the weather was good we could see the sea. I’m making an assumption it was Morecambe bay. We then continued onwards toCalders (675m). No trig here but a good sized cairn. It was at this point I realised that I had to walk it all in reverse. I was very tired at work the next day.Birks Fell (610m). I hated this mountain. I was poorly and looking back I don’t know why I decided to do the walk when I had shingles. I think I didn’t want to miss a weekend of no rain. The summit is about a mile from the trig point. There is a large stile as well so don’t bring a big dog. Enough said about this one.Yarlside (639m). Very steep this one. We welcomed Louise on the walk with us. We attempted to continue on to pick up Randygill Top but had to abandon this because we weren’t making very good progress.Great Whernside (704m). Probably my favourite summit as I love the big boulders.
July 2024.
We smashed out another 6 mountains over the month of July.
Drumaldrace, Wether Fell (614m). A nice easy walk. In hindsight we should have probably doubled up on this one, but I was hosting a BBQ and needed to get home in good time Dodd Fell Hill (668m). Another nice easy walk. The summit is wet though and has water surrounding the trig point. Great Coum (687m). I’d booked a half day at work and so we decided to make the most of the afternoon. It was easy up this one so we followed the Coll across toGragareth (628m). Great Coum in the background there. The Coll walk sucked, it was so swampy. I nearly lost a pole because the swamp water came up to the handle. I was glad it was the pole and not me though.Rogan’s seat (672m). This is a nice easy walk where you pretty much follow a track all the way to the top. I stopped afterwards and had an amazing pie in the pub at Gunnerside. The pie was ruined by the fact the dogs acted so badly it was like an episode of dogs with asbos.After our dinner at Gunnerside we realised we were fairly close and could drive over to Buttertubs and pick up Lovely Seat (675m). This is only a short trek from Buttertubs pass.
August 2024
We managed to pick up 6 mountains in August despite going away for a sunny break.
Fountain’s Fell (668m). This was an easy walk up. Rachel and I were chatting so much we didn’t even realise that we had reached the summit. We then walked across to Darnbrook Fell (624m). The trig is cool on Darnbrook. As the peat has washed away it has exposed the trigs concrete foundations. We then decided to walk down instead of heading back. This one should be on the bloopers reel from coming down Darnbrook Fell. I managed to find a bloody massive hole and seriously freaked out.Pen-y-ghent (694m). This was a disney land mountain. It felt like half of Yorkshire was on the summit having a picnic. We had to queue to get up the scramble. We then headed away from the crowds to go to Plover Fell (680m). No trig on there but was a lot quieter than Pen-y-ghent. We then headed down and explored Hull pot which was cool. Our next walk in August also took us up 2 mountains. First we went up Simon Fell (649m). Nothing really eventful about this walk. It has the beginnings of a small cairn being made over time by walkers. We then continued on toIngleborough (724m). This one needs no introduction and has a great summit. It was very busy up there though.
September 2024
The weather was starting to change and took a bit of a toll on our mountain walks.
We went back to attempt Randygill top (624m). We had attempted this one previously but abandoned the walk. We came from a different direction and it was a much easier walk, albeit it was windy when we went up. Yokenthwaite Moor (643m). This is the bog standing between us and the trig. Thankfully the peat was quite solid when we went and nobody lost a boot.Whernside (736m) and the highest point in Yorkshire. We had lost Rachel on this walk as she had injured herself on Yokenthwaite and wisely sat the walk out. Considering it’s the highest mountain it’s also probably one of the easiest as there is a path all the way up and down.
October 2024
The days were drawing, but we were adamant we would finish the Dales 30 this year.
Baugh Fell, Tarn Rigg (678m). We struggled to find the summit on this one. No trig point or cairn. We ended up taking an elevation reading and combined with the os map decided we were at the top. There were some cool cairns further down the hill though.Little Fell (667m). It had amazing cairns coming up the mountain then at the summit it was a stick. We then followed lots of cairns over the Coll toHigh Seat (709m). From here we descended into Outhgill. I am not sure I would recommend this route. It was incredibly steep and we came down on our bums.A bloopers reel. The colour of Rachel’s pants after descending the mountain on her bum. The mountain side we came down in the distance.Calf Top (610m). The smallest of all the mountains in the Dales. It was a good walk, with another route I’d chosen that we descended on our bums.
November 2024
We were struggling with weather but had 2 mountains left so we knew we just had to get a weekend where it was safe for us to walk. After this we decided to leave the mountain walking to Spring as we didn’t want to invest in lots of new gear.
Wild Boar Fell (708m). We picked our day and knew we had to be fast as the weather was forecast to change in the afternoon. It was freezing. We continued onto our last mountain Swarth Fell (681m). We’d made it to the last mountain. It was too cold to celebrate and it was time to descend. Again the girls came down on their bums.
December 2024
Time for lowland walks and hoping it doesn’t rain too badly. We had to cancel a few walks because of the wind.
Beamsley Beacon. A great little hill that we managed to extend to get some miles in. Swinsty and Fewston Reservoir. When the weather gets bad this is our usual walk. A sneaky walk to Janet Foss, Gordale Scar and Malham Cove.A different reservoir walk at Marsden Moor
We’ve had so many fun adventures in 2024 and I will do a write up on all the walks at some point.
We have some amazing things planned for 2025, that I’m really looking forward to. Zara and I have even purchased a tent to help us complete some of these plans. More to follow over the next few months.
Breathless Hikers 
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