The lower reaches of Rye Dale are protected by steep banks of mixed woodland that keep the car away. Only one tiny lane services the ruins of Rievaulx, and even this scoots nervously across the calm valley. The same can be said for Riccal Dale, except here there are no flood plains to open up the valley.
This route was born out of frustration and ensuing stubbornness. I had long yearned to walk the length of the western escarpment of the North York Moors from Roulston Scar to Osmotherley in a day trip. I assumed the return could be made by bus, but frustratingly the timetable was far too limited.
Cracoe Fells lies inside the Yorkshire Dales National Park, but only just. Maybe that’s why it gets neglected as blinkered cars race by to Grassington and beyond. I remember staring up at it on early expeditions from Bradford, but it was many years before I made my first visit, and I was determined to turn my return into a credible challenge.
Without wishing to upset those good folk who live on the eastern side of the Pennines, with the exception of Pen-y-ghent and Ingleborough, I can never get quite as excited about the hills in the Yorkshire Dales as those magnificent little mountains in the Lake District.
Bypassed by thousands making for the Lakes or overshadowed by the popularity of the Yorkshire Dales, Bowland’s hills are often all but deserted.
Mastiles Lane was a key part of a drovers’ super-highway in the eighteenth century, the M6 of its time. Before then it was in use by monks from Fountains Abbey more than 20 miles away, linking the grange at Kilnsey with sheep pastures on Malham Moor. Earlier still, the Romans pounded the path in their war against the Celtic Brigantes of northern England, leaving behind remains of one of their marching camps as a relic of their conquest.
The information panel above gives this route starting from Pateley Bridge, but on my latest visit I set off from Brimham Rocks.
When the heather that covers much of the North Yorkshire Moors is not in flower and the brown twiggy plants form a dark matting, it is very tempting to think of these moors as barren.
Simon’s Seat is a rocky platform perched in the heather above Upper Wharfedale. It’s normally tackled via the Valley of Desolation and perhaps The Strid, but I was looking for an alternative when I noticed paths linking it to Trollers Gill and the River Wharfe.
Bilsdale appears out of proportion in that it’s a really wide valley with a really small river that looks like it could never have had the oomph to carve its way through the moorland on this scale.
Glorious sunshine beat down from between white woolly clouds floating like islands in a blue sea. I could bear it no longer. This wasn’t a day for DIY, and I quickly swapped ladder and paintbrush for boots and camera, and sneaked off to the hills.
Swaledale. The name just dawdles off the tongue, conveying the impression of a wide sweeping dale with lingering river. Wrong. Take a look at those tightly packed contours around Muker and Reeth while trying not to drool over the map.
The heathery plateau of the North York Moors is striking for its emptiness and vast skies, although the best views are undoubtedly from the fringing Cleveland and Hambleton hills.
When I look at the Nidderdale map around Pateley Bridge it’s the crags and gritstone edges that draw my eye. The lesser crags to the north suffer from a lack of rights of way, but they do lie within an Open Access area. I set off one fine dawn to see if I could link a few of them together – and I got more than I bargained for.
I tread through gently undulating pastures just out of grasp of the Yorkshire Dales boundary, where fields, bordered by low walls relying on patchy fences to hold the fort, overlook the silvery line of Fewston Reservoir.
Lovely Seat is one of the many Yorkshire Dales hills that aren’t served by a public footpath, at least not one that wanders anywhere near the top. Some do serve the limestone crags that line the southern boundary though, and from there no fences or walls appear on the Open Access maps.
The towering walls of a mediaeval fortress are the dramatic setting for the start of this Wensleydale wander. It bears the scars of history well, and today it’s still owned by a direct descendant of the original owner.
Unremitting blizzards had harried the eastern Pennines for several days, but heading for the higher mountains further west I hoped to find enough snow to lend the land that fresh, untamed, wintry feel.
Twenty-three miles is more than I’d normally cover on a short November day, but Sue and I were joining friends on the annual Wensleydale Wedge, a challenge walk organised by the Long Distance Walkers Association (LDWA) which should be completed in nine hours if you want your certificate and badge.
England’s finest limestone pavements completely surround Ingleborough. There’s no right of way, but by using CROW, and with luck, I hoped to devise a round. I had to gamble on getting through the walls, but with a good tactical approach I’d have the land to myself, and the thrill of discovery.
The North York Moors have always been among my favourite areas for walking. While they don’t have the majestic peaks of the Lake District, they do provide countless routes across the heather moorland plateaus and through the snugly wooded valleys that make this part of Yorkshire so unique.
There were menacing storm clouds lurking over the hills west of the River Wharfe, so we decided to go where the sun was shining – the hills just east of the river. It looked as though it could be one those unpredictable weather days of make for an interesting walk.
Fellwalking is about leaving the urban sprawl and the busy valley lands behind you. Except when you do it in Yorkshire. In Yorkshire, heading for the high car park and then uphill, you miss half the point of it. Yorkshire’s hills are cragged wild limestone – but so are Yorkshire’s villages.
“A smile will always do more than a frown, either in Scar village or Harrogate Town” Scar Village Notes newspaper, January 1926. When I arrived at Scar House Reservoir the light was just beginning to reveal the ghost of Scar village – home to more than a thousand dam builders and their families for much of the 15 years of construction.
Hebden Bridge was buzzing as usual. The old mill town is blessed with a setting of great natural beauty – rugged gritstone moors riven by several deep and winding wooded valleys known in these parts as deans. Four and five-storey stone mills and terraces are built into the hillsides, while the railway, road, canal and the River Calder jostle for room on the valley floor.
I’m not a railway buff by any means but there’s something about a steam train that makes me feel my journey is worth making. I recently took the opportunity to indulge, with a walk from Levisham station heading north to Goathland and a delightful return journey on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway.
This trip, early in the year, was mainly an excuse for a wander up to and over Guise Cliff. The lower slopes run steeply up from Nidderdale to a notable precipice that overlooks Pateley Bridge and Brimham Rocks. Ancient woodland dresses the slope, and deep within it lays a secluded and secretive pond.
Finding routes off the path isn’t easy, but there’s a great sense of achievement to be gained in managing to string a course together using CROW. Pen-y-ghent is one of my favourite hills. I thought I’d travelled every circuit, but looking at the map I spotted High Green Field Knott, a broad and reasonably high ridge to the north.
I was drooling over maps one evening, trying to keep them dry, when a novel route popped into my head.
A kestrel takes to the wing as I wander Great Ayton Moor, the border of which is lined with conifer and birch. In the absence of thermals in the pre-dawn air, it harnesses the up-draught from the edge to gain altitude, before sliding away to where the land rolls towards the coast in the east.
The first time I paced this route was on a densely foggy day. There was no rain, yet each conifer needle held a delicate drop of condensed mist, forcing me into a waterproof top as I pushed through the pines that crowd tiny meandering paths threading their way through woods that finger the south-west corner of the North York Moors.
There’s a distinct lack of parking on the Kingsdale Road on White Shaw Moss, bearing in mind you need to leave passing places clear, but luckily no one else had had the same idea this day, so I found a crafty parking position and shunned Whernside for the slopes below Crag Hill.
There’s something magical about hillwalking anywhere on a crisp, cold, clear day but, to my mind, this is especially true in the North York Moors. I don’t know just what it is about this landscape that lends itself to a covering of frost or snow but it seems designed for conditions like those I encountered recently as I drove out from Osmotherley.
There’s no mistaking the scarred and often surreal landscape of Swaledale, pock-marked with the remains of long quiet mine workings. Despite, or maybe even because of this, Swaledale is one of my favourite areas. The hills are craggy, bleak and steeped in history, and the disused tips and smelting chimneys make it stand apart from the rest of the Dales.
The secluded moors of Threshfield and Malham tender an appealing blend of harsh heather, dissolving brooks and limestone delights. Pockets of mixed woodland house heaps of tiny songbirds, enough to make any twitcher tremble, but from April to the end of July the RSPB’s presence at Malham Cove is the main attraction, for it is here that the world’s fastest creature puts on a show.
