Starting in Horton-in-Ribblesdale gives Pen-y-Ghent a better beginning than a lay-by ever could. There is a bit of age to the place, and as you pass St Oswald’s on the way out, you are heading for the hill from a village that has been rooted here for centuries, right under Pen-y-Ghent’s nose. It gives the walk some depth straight away, before the climb has even started. Let me take you on an afternoon out that pretty much has everything you’d want in walk.
Pen-y-ghent from Horton-in-Ribblesdale
Route Map and GPX
This is the classic Pen-y-Ghent circuit from Horton-in-Ribblesdale: up by Brackenbottom Scar, onto the Pennine Way for the final climb to the 694m summit, then down past Hunt Pot and Hull Pot before returning to the village along Horton Scar Lane.
For the best ‘experience’ using the map, click on that box in the top left to go ‘full screen’ (Esc to come back). On mobile: Zoom by pinching and click to reveal names. Desktop: Hold CTRL and roll the mouse, hover to reveal a Wainwright’s name and see information.
Start
Summit
Water
Place of interest
Caution / Escape
Parking
Refresh
ToiletsCircular Route at a glance
- Distance: 10km (6 miles)
- Ascent: 473m (1551ft)
- Time: 2.5 hours
- Start: Golden Lion, Horton-in-Ribblesdale
- Difficulty: Moderate with a short scramble
- Map: OS Explorer OL2
Summits
- Pen-y-Ghent
Field notes
- Terrain: Mostly good, obvious paths and a walled return lane, with some limestone underfoot and a short hands-on scramble near the top.
- Navigation: Straightforward in clear weather, but in mist the summit approach and descent need more care than the lower part of the route.
- Parking: Horton car park is the standard public start, with toilets there and Horton station close by if arriving by train.
Watch out for
The final scramble can be slippery when wet, the summit section is exposed to wind, don’t take things for granted
Why do it
Because it packs a lot into a short day: a proper Dales village start, Brackenbottom Scar, a fun little scramble, Pennine Way summit ground, big views, and limestone drama.
Dog friendly?
Yes, for a sensible hill-fit dog, but not without care. Keep dogs on a lead around livestock, especially in spring and early summer, and be cautious near limestone holes, pavement and sink holes. The scramble and exposed edges will not suit every dog.
Is this walk for you?
This is for you if you want one of the Yorkshire Three Peaks in a manageable circuit that still feels like a proper mountain day. It suits walkers who are happy with a short scramble, a bit of exposure and a steady climb, but it is less ideal for anyone wanting an easy stroll, a pushchair-friendly route, or a hill with no hands-on moments. The National Park describes it as the easiest of the Three Peaks, but it is still high, exposed ground and needs treating properly.
My Pen-y-Ghent
The best route up Pen-y-Ghent is from Horton-in-Ribblesdale, and it’s the best route for many reasons – being a circular route you start in a historical quaint Yorkshire village which means you finish in the same village, having a pub selling food and an very old open church for tea and cake, the warm up is perfect up to where you meet the Pennine Way, then there’s an excellent little scramble, amazing views and beautiful Yorkshire countryside to take in – other longer routes don’t offer the same satisfaction per mile.
I’m really quite excited about doing Pen-y-Ghent today, not because it’s an iconic Yorkshire Dales hill or the route includes a lovely scramble, but because I’m meeting (and climbing the hill with) my good friend John Beamson, who I haven’t seen for a while. More later.
Start: The Golden Lion, Horton-in-Ribblesdale
I park up in a car park/field at the back of the Golden Lion, next to an old clapped out Land Rover Defender (for sale since they built the pub I think). I wander up to the road while I’m waiting. I wish I had a quid for every car I’ve seen passing the pub from the south, checking out the parking along the main street, then turning round to end up where I am.
John and I haven’t seen each other for a while and after all that’s happened for both of us in that time, it’s wonderful to see someone I’ve been through so much with. In it together since doing our Mountain Leader training.
He turns up and, in true Beamo style, gets his kit off – arse out. ‘Just need to get changed’, he announces as we catch up – boots, bags and all sorts of bo!!ocks.
Onwards and upwards – Brackenbottom Scar
Starting in Horton-in-Ribblesdale gives this walk a bit of weight before you get anywhere near the hill. There is something about setting off past St Oswald’s that makes the whole thing feel older and more rooted than a straight march from a car park. Parts of the church go back to the 12th century, and even the doorway and font still carry that heavy Romanesque character, as if the village has been watching people head for Pen-y-Ghent forever.
Taking a left after the church, we’re on a lane leading to a few cottages, then a track along the stream and round to Brackenbottom (the next hamlet) where we turn left through a gate. It’s very obviously the way if you can see Pen-y-Ghent, and if you can’t, that’s what navigation is for (and my GPX file).
Shortly into the hike, you get a very nice view of Ingleborough (one of the other Yorkshire Three Peaks) from Brackenbottom Scar, which adds a bit of theatre to the climb – a rough limestone edge that makes Pen-y-Ghent feel like it is finally starting to bare its teeth.
This is where this walk can be a wee adventure for the youngest of children. Not that you’re necessarily going to take them up the final scramble to the summit but there are two easy scrambles along this first leg, climbing where the limestone has been exposed along the contour of the hill.
Pen-y-Ghent does not give everything away all at once, but it is in view on a nice day pretty much the whole time, and as you proceed, the view gets more intriguing, until…
The Snow Storm
I quickly change coat, it’s coming.
The rain is just the start of it. Not very hard rain to begin with but almost horizontal so eventually felt like tiny pellets being sprayed at me. We discussed coats briefly (he said he’s had a Paramo since we did Pillar and remembers the one I had: one of those got soaked, used £20 worth of their product, got soaked, sort of conversations). When we’re out on the hills one or more of us is always talking at any moment. In this rain we’re shouting to each other. Next time you’re out in heavy rain with someone, take a step back for a second and listen to how you’re speaking to each other, then imagine the storm isn’t there – it’s hilarious.
What became a downpour only lasting for 10 minutes or so. As we got higher and the rain cease, the madness began! The rain turns into hail and gives us a beating for another 10 minutes. It’s just the best fun being bombarded by a shower like this. We push on as it hits our left side.
To finish the performance, we’re flowered with big chunks of snow, drifting with intention, crossing us north to south, down the dale it goes.
And in perfect symphony, and true Yorkshire style, to finish the four seasons, the afternoon is beautiful once more. A little flurry brings 20 minutes of exhilaration.
Up the yellow brick road (you’ll see what I mean) and to the last gate, where we meet the Pennine way and take a left. There is a well beaten track. If it’s very misty, be sure to follow the scramble where the rocks are very worn from millions who have gone before you and survived. You don’t want to end up crag fast, although on a nice day, you might wonder how anyone could.
The Yorkshire Dales are built from layers of limestone, shale, sandstone and millstone grit laid down as marine sediments around 350 million years ago.
On hills like Pen-y-Ghent those layers help create the stepped profile you can see from miles away. Part of what gives Pen-y-Ghent its character is the geology.
The scramble itself is short, but it gives the route a bit of bite. It is not technical climbing or even a grade 2 scramble, but it is steep enough to make you put the poles away, use your hands and pay attention to your feet. There are also some higher steps that shorter walkers will have to use their noggin to get up as well as their hands. The easy leaving-the-village feeling is long gone and the mountain is suddenly right there in front of you, showing its steep flank and making it quite clear that the summit will have to be earned.
John Beamson
Back in February 2017, I posted an invite on my facebook group to see if anyone fancied doing Blencathra in the Lake District. It was winter and heavy snow forecast, surprisingly nobody was game – except John. He was training to do his Mountain Leader assessment the same month as I was. We met for the very first time in a layby in Mungrisedale. Game on!
We spoke every day after that, both got our ML accreditation a couple of months later and we started our businesses. We’ve had loads of adventures together and run numerous events and retreats in the Lakes and Scotland together. I helped him in his goal to replace the stolen Blencathra Summit Stone, we’ve slept in bothies and caves together, done grade 3 scrambling (but we’ll never be climbers), wild camped, done Pillar the bonkers way, Sharp Edge, Tryfan, shooting, ice climbing, Lord’s Rake the tricky way. He’s one of the only people in the world I can trust with my life in his hands.
Having spent 10 years in the army, John, known as The CEO Adventurer, is a guide for CEOs and business owners who want to test themselves beyond the usual limits of work and everyday life. He’s always took outdoor adventure and made it a tool for personal development, using physical challenge as a way to build mindset, sharpen resilience and push people towards a stronger version of themselves.
If any of that rings a bell and you want to transform YOUR life, you want someone like John Beamson in your circle. It might not be John for you. It might be Paul from Wales or Alex from wherever.
Either way, get a John.
The top of the Pen-y-Ghent scramble
It’s stunning view from the top of the scramble over the Pennine Way: cumulonimbus clouds, the size of Everest, moving south towards Manchester, and towards my family, who would report their presence later in the day.
From the top of the climb, there’s a few hundred metres along the path to the summit trig pillar (S5776 if that stuff floats your boat) marking the highest point.
Pen-y-Ghent Summit
On Pen-y-Ghent’s 694-metre summit the hill feels broader and more exposed than it does from below, with the Pennine Way crossing the top and the whole of the Yorkshire Three Peaks country suddenly opening up around you.
Ingleborough and Whernside are the obvious eye-catchers, Ribblesdale falls away to the west, and there is that great feeling conquering something. Looking north, the mountain runs along a ridge towards Plover Hill, the quieter 680-metre secondary top, joined to Pen-y-Ghent by unbroken high ground and easy enough to imagine as the hill’s second thought rather than a separate fell altogether. Pen-y-Ghent is one of those summits that help maps make sense.
Descending Pen-y-Ghent
West over the wall eventually takes you down to a paved path, it’s all very civilised now, we’re on the Pennine Way until we return to Horton. Thousands of day trippers pass here every year so it makes sense to keep the paths in order to reduce erosion. Of course, the glaciers did a fair bit of erosive work here during the last Ice Age, beating and plucking, scraping and scaring for many thousands of years before their final retreat around 15,000 years ago. But the erosion we make causes problems which take a lot time to fix to get things back up to standard.
If we want to walk up that path for the next 20 years, or we want to take our children, or grandchildren up that path in 20 years, we need to look after the whole route. Then of course, it’s no longer wild is it? It’s a catch 22 for people like me who want to be in the wilderness when I’m out like this. I don’t want them to build a staircase up to Pen-y-Ghent but there’ll be one fella who falls and everything will change. Maybe people will stop falling when they put an escalator in.
We’ve gone nowhere near Plover Hill along the ridge but we do briefly meet Pen-y-Ghent Side, the hill’s long northern shoulder, all white limestone scars and a more worn, weathered look than the summit itself.
Holes in the hills
Getting down to lower ground, you could visit Hunt Pot, not far from the path, which makes Pen-y-Ghent feel hollowed out beneath your boots. And it is.
Hull Pot is the bigger spectacle, a huge collapsed cavern on the western side of Pen-y-Ghent, just north of where we get to Horton Scar Lane (through the gate below). It measures about 91 metres long, 18 metres wide and 18 metres deep, and in wet weather the beck can pour over the edge into it as a proper waterfall.
I have better plans than just paying a visit so I’ll be back here soon.
Horton Scar Lane
From this gate, Horton Scar Lane makes for a fine way back, a walled old track through classic limestone country with Pen-y-Ghent slowly falling behind you.
So I think on the way back, what have I got from being out today?
Well, firstly, as John is moving to Manchester in the coming weeks, it’s been very good to know that he’s up for getting to know the Peak District very well, and I look forward to finding new adventures hidden in Derbyshire.
I think we’ve inspired each other enough over the years for me to know that I won’t move on from today without being motivated or moved in some way, or finding an answer to something bothering me. John’s commitment and tenacity is infectious. I’ve been through a storm of my own over the last year, and John’s been through his.
We both know that our friend is there, just like Pen-y-Ghent was there when the sun came out, after the hail and the snow, to welcome us to the day’s proxy challenge. An outward, chosen difficulty, that final scramble, that helps us face an inward, unchosen one. This year has already thrown it’s challenges my way but I’m starting to see patches of blue sky ahead.
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