Challenge walk pics.

[yorkiesauctions]

I didn't take many photos on the challenge walk yesterday, mainly because of conditions but also because I was concentrating on doing the walk. I really struggled climbing and descending the mountain, there were several times when I didn't think that I could do it and I even thought about calling it a day. But I "tricked" myself into doing it by setting myself mini-targets and telling myself that I'll see how I feel when I've reached that target. It sounds daft but it works. lol

Anyway here are the few photos that I took.

This is me at the starting point at 6am. I've got me loose fitting walkers pants on and an old denim padded shirt, I know it looks scruffy but it's comfortable and that was all that I was bothered about. I'd been up about 5 hours by this point.



This was taken about 20 minutes into the walk, the sun was coming up at last.



This is when it first got to proper daylight. We'd climbed a large hill and was looking down on the tree and river.

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These are folk who are members of various walkers clubs. One club had set themself a target of finishing in as near to eight hours as they could. Another of the walkers clubs had managed to raise a massive £8,000 between them.



This farmhouse was in the middle of nowhere, I'd love to live there.



The cloud was starting to drop again and the rain was head our way again.

[yorkiesauctions]

Another lovely farmhouse in a remote location...I want one!



One of the Marshals pointing us in the right direction. There were Marshals dotted around the walk, usually about every two miles or so.



A few of the folk who were behind me. By the time we finished the walk folk were strung out all across the course. They were over 500 folk taking part in the challenge, sadly many didn't manage to finish. I saw one bloke being lifed down after a fall but I don't know how many others needed to be helped after accidents. I'm guessing that there will have been quite a few because conditions were very poor and loads of people fell, myself included.

[yorkiesauctions]

It's a shame the weather was so awful because the views would have been stunning. If you've never been to Clapham, Settle, Skipton, or that area of the Yorkshire Dales then I would highly reccomend it folks, it's bloody beautiful.



This is the ambulance waiting to take somebody back to checkout some folk and treat them, the other cars belong to the Marshalls who take people back to the village if they think it is unsafe for them to continue or if the person says they can't go on. You don't know just how tempted I was to jump into one of those cars and call it a day!



This is checkpoint two, which was roughly half way through the walk. The green tent is where you checked in, you had to check in at each checkpoint so the Marshals knew if anyone had gone missing in the hills. The guy in the red coat on the left was a really interesting bloke. I first bumped into him at checkpoint one (about 2 hours into the walk) and ended up doing the rest of the walk with him. He is an ex-army lad who does several of these challenge walks for charity, he taught me a few tricks about keeping going when you really want to stop and about resting while you are walking. He said that this was the toughest charity challenge that he has ever done, he said he won't be doing next year if it's the same location.

[yorkiesauctions]

And we head off to the next checkpoint. I found that if I kept a couple of the prettier walkers infront of me it worked a lot like dangling a carrot infront of a donkey, it kept me moving. lol




These last two photos show what the weather was like for 90% of the day, the wind was bag all day too. I was nearly chuffin deaf by the time at got to the finish because I had had the wind roaring in my ears for nearly 11 hours. Everyone was soaked through to their skin because the wind drove the rain through the waterproofs. One of the biggest problems for the Marshals was folk who were soaking wet and freezing from the wind.





I didn't take a photo of the mountain because I couldn't see the bugga. When we got half way up our biggest problem, apart from exhaustion, was stopping ourselves being blown off it. The wind was so powerful, I've never seen anything like it.

[bykimbo]

Superb. Really interesting and the photos are brilliant even in the mizzle. I love those farmhouses too. If you manage to get one, let me know if you need a housekeeper - I'm a good cook.

Congratulations yet again on a serious achievement.

[smiffy49er]

Wow respect Frank. You did it in the toughest weather possible.

Think how easy you can do it next year in sunshine lol

[shady-lady-45uk]

Brill pics despite the weather looks a fab place.......hope ure feeling ok this morning.x

[Barrattess]

...very very well done Frank...I salute you!

[maroy41]

Brilliant pics and great commentary, very interesting. Congratulations Frank, you did great even if the weather was against you.