A Dales celebration way

The following is a report of a walk done in the summer of 2006. It was originally inspired by the dales celebration way described at http://www.walkingenglishman.com/dalescelebrationway.htm but with an extra extension to take in the Howgill Fells and hills on top of the Mallestrang. With these extensions the total walk features a little under 400km of walking with a fair bit of ascent and descent. (For comparison the Pennine way is 460km.).

The basic inspiration for this walk is to link together interesting features and hills within the dales. As such the routes taken are at times almost comically indirect. While I would recommend any of the days as (long!) walks during Summer, many of the areas visited would be viscous bogs in winter.

In brief the days each involved roughly 30km distance and 1000 metres ascent/descent. This might be longer than many people find comfortable. The following account is purposefully quite sketchy to encourage people to plan their own routes.

Day 1 Settle ~ Horton in Ribblesdale:

I cannot remember every sweating as much as I did climbing up to Attermire scar from Settle - it is an easy climb but not with a heavy pack in 30+ degree heat. However things got easier and the walk round the scar to Rye Loaf Hill and onto Malham cove, up Gordale scar, past Malham tarn and finally over Fountains Fell and Pen y ghent really does feature some lovely scenery.

This day is a bit further than strictly preferable, especially for the first day (~37km). However the going is good and it didn't really feel a huge distance even with the heat.

Day 2 Horton - Ingleton

The heat wave persisted as I set off to tour the limestone plateaux of Ingleborough, starting near Suber Nick. Moving onto Moughton and round to the head of Crummack dale revealed numerous scars and huge areas of limsetone pavement.

I had originally intended to traverse to Norber along the limestone but the heat drove me down into Crummack dale. I then saw a few of the Norber erratics but missed the main plateaux before the crowded ascent of Ingleborough.

Day 3 Ingleton - Dent.

It was dispiriting to find the temperature amazingly high even at the start of the day as I set off through the waterfalls walk (suffering from the drought) and up Whernsides main ridge to the top before dropping to Dent. Thankfully the heat wave broke in an overnight thunderstorm and thereafter the weather settled down to a normal English summer.

Day 4 Dent - Sedbergh

The climb of Combe Hill from Dent is oddly short of paths. As I climbed some lowish cloud came down making the walk along the 'ridge' (a viscous bog in winter) to Gragerath (the highest hill in Lancashire) rather a bleak moorland treck.

This changed when I cut across to Ease Gill Kirk - a dry waterfall and across to Barbondale when the clouds finally lifted. Yielding a bright sunny day. This tempted me into a stupidly steep direct ascent of Calf Top - it really is better to go W first! - from where I got some the first really clear views of the holiday.

Calf Top, whilst not (quite) reaching 2000ft is the most Westerly of the substantial hills in the dales and yields great views over Morecambe bay and especially the Howgills behind Sedbergh.

Day 5 Sedbergh - Grayrigg

The weather held again for this ascent of the howgills starting with Winder, before going to the Calf and out W to Grayrigg after wandering around. The views of the North pennines, Lake district and Shap fells really are very good.

Day 6 Grayrigg - Orton

My original plan to go up long sleddale to Harter Fell and back over the shap fells was shelved as too silly (40+km). Instead I climbed the Whinfell ridge which yields good views before heading W up Borrowdale and back E through Bretherdale.

I didn't regret this choice - Borrowdale in particular is a very nice valley.

Day 7 Orton - Newbiggin on Lune

Today I was greeted by fairly heavy driving rain - amazing how the climate can swing so far in a few days. Anyway the main plain to explore the Northern howgills was dumped in favour of a lower level route through the Howgills via Bowdersdale and down near Cautley Spout. The route N round Wandale Hill and Hater fell was amazingly deserted but pleasant.

In fact by the evening the weather had cleared and I had to sit in my B&B with the hills bathed in beautiful sunshine.

Day 8 Newbiggin on Lune - Kirkby Stephen

This day started out repeating the end of the previous day in going S to Rawthey bridge. I then followed the Rawthey up onto the flanks of Holmes Moss Hill. While ascending Swarth Fell some low cloud came down againg so few views were possible from Wild Boar Fell.

However I did get some nice views on the way down, especially when sitting on Birkett Common a small limsetone hillock at the head of Mallestrang.

Day 9 Kirkby Stephen - Thwaite

I had previously been slightly worried about this route - it features a large area of trackless moorland which could have been a nasty bog. However this wasn't a problem given the recent weather and given clear views this was a very pleasant climb of great shunner fell via High Seat. Later I cut W off Great Shunner Fell to visit the waterfalls around Keld.

Day 10 Thwaite - Reeth

There are two main routes down Swaledale. Most coast to coast walkers apparently now prefer to walk down the Swale. The higher level route via Swinner and Gunnerside gill is very much an aquired taste.

While you can still see that the scenery was once lovely the relics (and damage) from the lead mining industry are everywhere especially in Gunnerside gill. I found Swinner Gill and the walk along the edge of the dale to the edge of Gunnerside gill to be very worthwhile but Gunnerside gill rather too spoilt to enjoy.

Day 11 Reeth - Cray

This is definetly some kind of watershed in that the walk started to turn for home. I again got very good weather although the route finding through farmland around Asygarth and up Walden was annoyingly difficult.

The day started with a so-so climb over Harkerside moor to Castle Bolton. Aysgarth falls had a very low flow and were merely pretty. (In more normal flow they are definetly worth seeing.).

However the ascent of Buckden pike from the Walden was truly pleasant over dry peat and yielded some lovely views, especially down Walden but also when dropping towards Cray. On a nice summers day Buckden pike's summit is a lovely place. Winter can be a different matter.

Day 12 Cray - Grassington

The day started with a rather perverse diversion up Langstrothdale to climb up onto Horse head moor. The walk along the moor was pleasant with some nice views. I had been planning to come off the moor to Starbottom before climbing great whernside (the only top 10 dales I missed), but landed up in Buckden by mistake.

However the walk down the valley along the dales way is very pleasant.

Day 13: Grassington to Ilkley

For much of the way this simply followed the (very pleasant) dales way route. However I threw in a pleasant diversion to a final hill in the shape of Simon's Seat, before descending the valley of desolation (which is curiously in reality a very pretty place).

Conclusions
The dales really are well suited to this kind of walking being very well equipped with paths and accommodation and this was a highly enjoyable if hard walk. It's certainly one for summer though - there are large sections which would be nasty, trackless bogs in winter.

Of course one could stay in the same places with much less effort - perhaps only days 11 and 13 have to be quite long.