| Blea Moor - A short walk from Ribblehead - 28th December 2008 | |
| Distance: 10.2 km / 6.34 mls This great little walk starts from the New Inn at Ribblehead in the Yorkshire Dales. Shown here is Batty Wife Cave - About a thirty foot crawl if you're feeling that way inclined, personally I'll give it a miss on this ocassion! |
 |
| We head N/West past the famous Ribblehead Viaduct and Blea Moor Common, the Railway Construction Sheduled Monument. |  |
| The path soon turns north as we approach
the signal box at Blea Moor Sidings. Carry on heading north for a further 700m until just before the path descends to cross the stream, a track can be seen branching off slightly to the right (GR SD 7608 8126). |
 |
| Follow this track for approx 1km. until
the first pile of waste from the tunnel excavations is
reached. The photograph taken from the first mound shows the path climbing up through the spoil heaps. |
 |
| Reaching the second spoil heap and the first Air shaft |  |
| Looking back down the valley toward Ingleborough |  |
| The second ventilation shaft is soon
reached. There were originally seven shafts sunk during
the construction of the tunnel. Steam engines were used
to lower the navvies and haul the waste to the surface. Three now remain as ventilation shafts, the deepest of which, approx 120m / 390ft overlooks Dentdale |
|
| . | |
| The path flattens out as we approach a
boundary fence Turning SE we follow the fence for approx 0.5km |
 |
| A short walk from the fence soon brings
us to the summit trig point Blea Moor 535m / 1755ft GR:SD7726 82570 The view of the summit with Ingleborough on the left and Whernside on the right. The return leg is best done by retracing ones steps. |
 |
| Back | |
