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A month back home in the Yorkshire Dales

Jackie Pickles

couple selfie in the Dales

After returning to the UK on December 5th following a 6-week stay in Thailand, we've been busy bees preparing for a family Christmas and a month back home in the Yorkshire Dales.


Broken Macbook

In the final week of our trip to Thailand, disaster hit when Richard's MacBook wouldn't turn on. We attempted to charge it, hoping it had simply run out of battery, but unfortunately, it was completely unresponsive! This meant we couldn't edit or upload any videos for a couple of weeks, which provided us with a welcome break from filming.


With the computer being over 2 years old and out of warranty, we anticipated the worst at our genius bar appointment, but the staff were incredibly helpful! To summarize, since Richard had a new screen installed just 10 weeks earlier (another unfortunate event), they sent the computer off to diagnose the issue and repaired it at no cost. This was because a technician had previously opened the laptop to fix the screen, and the work was still under a 3-month warranty. We were definitely relieved that we didn't have to purchase a replacement at this time of year!

Pen y Ghent covered in snow at sunrise

Exploring the Dales

Even though we walked a lot in Thailand, we didn't go on any hikes in the hills, so I've fallen significantly behind on my Everest anywhere challenge. Fortunately, the weather in the Dales has been quite favourable, allowing us to go on several hikes leading up to Christmas to minimise the deficit!


It's been fantastic to get out in the fresh air, and we've found even more beautiful hikes and trails in our local area.



Castlebergh Crags tower impressively behind the center of Settle. We had attempted to hike there a few times before, only to discover the path was closed. Now that it's open again, the view over Settle after the steep ascent to the flagpole was a wonderful reward. The scrumptious tea and cake at the Folly Museum afterwards was also fab!



We have ventured out to the Victoria Caves several times but never quite managed to reach the Jubilee Caves. It's another delightful hike that can start either from Settle town centre or, as we did, from the picturesque village of Langcliffe. It was a rather drizzly day when we set off, and we decided to turn back after exploring the caves. As we returned to the village, the rain cleared up, so we took a path I had noticed that led us to the top of the towering quarry cliffs above the Hoffman Kilns. We ended up walking nearly 10km and discovering various new farm tracks that kept us off the muddy fields.



Pen Y Ghent at sunrise

One of the things that we love about our retired life is the freedom to be really flexible with our plans. When we woke up one frosty Wednesday morning in January and looked out of the window to see Pen Y Ghent with a sprinkling of snow on the tops we decided to get out for a hike and it was a great decision.

It was a beautiful morning in the sunrise golden hour and the light was perfect for photography. It was also nice to have a nice hard frozen ground underfoot after weeks of trudging around in the mud or sticking to the country lanes.

Lots of elevation gained, miles walked and footsteps done!



2024 hiking challenges

I set 2 hiking goals in January 2024 that I have reviewed at the end of each month and worked hard to try and achieve.


The first was to climb the equivalent height of Mount Everest 4 times. An elevation gain of 35,396m in 12 months. We were doing really well upto the point that we went to Thailand and did not gain any elevation for the 6 weeks we were away! In total over the 3 weeks since we have been back in the Dales, we managed to add another 2600m of elevation to my target to end the year on a respectful 31,113m.


My other goal was to accumulate a total of over 300,000 steps per calendar month which would give me an average of over 10,000 steps a day. We are both really active, particularly when we are away in the van and in the summer months and we absolutely smashed this goal most months. I have it as a goal because it does force me to get out walking whatever the weather in the winter months when it is so easy to stay at home in front of the fire. February did elude me as we were both poorly and lost a week of getting out of the house!



Family time

The nice thing about getting back home in mid December was that we got to spend lots of quality time with all the family. We had a couple of pre Christmas weekends in Cheshire with my mum and meeting up with lots of friends.

Christmas itself was a little different to our plans as due to illness - so we had a very quiet couple of days with just Luke and Charlotte. The weather Gods were on our side and we managed to get out on a couple of nice walks to blow the cobwebs away - unlike last year when it rained solidly for all of December and January!


We did get to see Georgia and Molly for a couple of days when they were better and have since had a great week skiing with them (more about that in the next blog)

christmas dinner

The joy of a warming fire

One of the things we have enjoyed the most in our few weeks back in the Dales is the nice, crisp cold weather. Don't get us wrong - we really enjoyed the 32 degrees heat of Thailand but it did feel like you couldn't escape it at times.

We have loved getting back form a cold walk, cooking a nice hearty meal and sitting in front of th ewoodburning stove watching the flames for our entertainment! It has made the dark nights bearable and we have revelled in the fact that it is much easier to get yourself warm than it is to cool yourself down!


log burner

Snow and flooding in the valley

The weather for the first couple of weeks of January in the Dales was not the greatest. We had a couple of days when the village was almost completely cut off. Getting home from Cheshire on New Years day was interesting with deep flooding turning us back at Sawley. I have never seen so much water in the Ribble valley - it looked as though a reservoir had appeared over night and it stayed for a good few days.


Then the snow came! We have not seen any snow of any significance in the Dales since we lived lived there but we got a good 6 inch covering which caused even more flooding as it melted. It was great fun to play in though whilst it was there!



DIY Van insulation

In preparation for our up coming trip to the French Alps - Richard decided to try a bit of DIY and made an insulation wrap for the inside of the pop top roof so that we could keep the roof up even when it was in the minus temperatures. He set to with a will with a roll of silver bubble wrap, scissors and ducktape. Only time will tell if it makes a difference - but if we can keep the roof up it would give us so much more storage space and the ability to stand up in the van which is always an advantage.



An impromptu Lake District trip

To test out the pop top roof insulation we decided to go over to the Lake district and spend a night at our favourite campsite - the Great Langdale NT site in the heart of the Langdales, which also has a great pub within walking distance. It would be a good test as the temperatures were set to go below zero and there was still snow on the ground.


It was a fab 36 hours and we managed to fit in a couple of short hikes. We did have to turn back on a hike to Angle Tarn on day 2 when it started snowing heavily again as we didn't want to get stuck in the Lakes and miss our ferry and journey down to the Alps.


All seemed to work well with the pop top - we were quite snug inside once we had got the heater on for a couple of minutes. It does seem to help keep the heat in and the condensation a little lighter.



It was a busy 4 weeks back in the Dales and we had great fun exploring, hiking and spending time with the family.


However - not ones to stand still for too long our next adventure awaits and we have left a very frosty Yorkshire Dales to drive down to the Alps for four weeks of skiing.


Catch up with what we get up to in our next blog which will hopefully be out in the next few days as we have a few days of snow in the mountains and rain in the valley due.


Have a great week,


Jackie and Richard

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