As I reached 72 years of age last week, I decided to re-visit the 72 mile Ribble Way, a walk i had done several times before, once back packing over 5 days and the others as a non-stopper, over an average 27 hours.
Along with my pal Malc we went for a non-stopper again, or should I say attempt as neither us are very fit at the moment due to not having done as much in the way of walking etc in the last year or so. That is apart from a couple of Ultra failures on my part, that is.
We held good pace for the first 40 miles from Longton near Preston to Gisburn, despite the continual rain during the first 5 hours and the slithering muddy fields which told on the legs.
After a two hour bivvy in Gisburn church porch, we continued, however the progress over Paythorne moor was slow and haphazard as several divertions were so badly signed, we added several miles, trying to figure it all out.
Early on we figured we would be done in 24 hours, however that time was coming up as we approached Settle after 54.5 miles, 18 miles short of our target. We could have carried on to make the rivers source and the end of the Ribble Way, some few miles beyond Ribblehead, but the weather, ground conditions and bad diversions spoiled the experience, so we decided to call it, in Settle. Still 54+ miles is a good starter for the season, and two days later the legs are fine and no problems with the feet.
If ever I do the route again I would not rely on the 1:50,000 mapping in the Ciccerone guidebook the I used, it just lacked so much detail. Diversions through many long fields and no fence marking made it very confusing.