I is for Ingleborough (A-Z Challenge)

Ingleborough has become one of my favourite mountains. I walk there often since moving to the Yorkshire Dales about a year and a half ago. This photograph was taken recently, on a lovely spring day on one of the many approaches to it. Winter is still trying to cling on in the UK and you can still see the snow on the mountainside. But spring is certainly in the air now.

Ingleborough is the second highest mountain in the Yorkshire Dales, at 723m and one of a trio of mountains known as the 'The Three Peaks'.  The other two are Whernside (736m) and Pen-y-ghent (694m). I've had the pleasure of climbing all three a number of times. These three peaks are climbed regularly, one after the other, as part of the Yorkshire Three Peaks Challenge: a 24 mile circular walk ending in a little village called Horton-in-Ribblesdale.

Ingleborough is intriguing in that there are visible remains of ruined battlements at the summit and evidence of ancient round houses. I love the thought that people have lived and died on this mountain for so many centuries. One funny story is of a round tower ,or Hospice, which was built close to the summit in 1830. On the day of its opening the celebrations became so raucous and alcohol-fuelled that the tower was pulled down and partly destroyed by the revellers. It was never re-built and the rest was destroyed some time later. Its scattered remains are there to this day.