Walks in The Yorkshire Dales - Swaledale - Wensleydale

• Location
• Description
• Contents
• Introduction
• Sample Route
• Maps

The Dales Landscape

The Yorkshire Dales is like nowhere else in England, a place of intrinsic and striking beauty that owes its scenic qualities both to nature and to man. Bestriding the central Pennines, that broad range of hills erupting along the middle of the country, and known to generations of schoolchildren as the ‘backbone of England’, the Dales boasts a diversity of landscape and character that is hard to beat.

Walkers trudging up the Pennine Way from the south into Craven leave the sombre mill valleys that fragment the desolate, weather-beaten moors of West Yorkshire and East Lancashire to be greeted by a brighter, more intimate scene of interwoven horizons. Rolling green hills, broken here and there by rugged scars of white limestone, rise to a distant, higher ground dissected by deepening valleys. Further east and to the north, the wild moors dominate, but even here a varied geology of underlying rock breaks up their melancholic uniformity.

It is perhaps perverse that, as an upland region, the Yorkshire Dales is named after its most low-lying elements. But, like the neighbouring Lake District, it is this complementary feature that determines its endearing uniqueness. Just as the Cumbrian mountains would be the less without scintillating tarns and lakes to reflect their awesome ruggedness, the character of the Dales hills relies on the gentle beauty that rises up from the long, deep and twisting valleys emanating from the core. Devoid of the dramatic impact of soaring peaks, knife-edge ridges and great hanging valleys, the mountains here might otherwise be regarded as unremarkable, with little to distinguish them from the other hills of the Pennine range, but their intimacy with the gentle valleys that they enclose is what truly sets them apart.

Despite the steep gradients that act as boundaries between the upper moors and the lowlands, it is often hard to define where the one begins and the other ends. Stroll in rich water meadows beside a serpentine river flowing in a flat-bottomed valley, or stride upon an airy plateau beneath vast, open skies, and there is little doubt where you are. But walk from one to the other and the transition is often quite subtle. In many places, the neatly walled grazing pastures of the lower valleys climb high up the slope, sometimes intermingled with variegated woodlands that soften the craggy steps. In their higher reaches, the valley bottoms can often feel utterly remote from the rest of the world, and have an untamed complexion that is more akin to the uplands. On the wildest of the tops, great morasses of peat hag and bog might stretch for miles, but even here the tendrils of the ubiquitous stone walls are never far away, encompassing bleak tracts of land and signifying a belonging to some farm settlement in the valley far below.

Ancient trackways and paths ignore these geographical divisions, and connect this dale to that, or lead up to small mines and quarries that were often as integral to a farming income as the cows’ milk and ewes’ wool. Although the contours of the land mean that summits are rarely visible from the valley floor, and vice versa, for much of the way in between, the wider views encompass them both. And it is from this perspective that the two really do come together to be appreciated as a single entity – the Yorkshire Dales.

Set between the Stainmoor and Aire gaps north and south, the Lune Valley in the west, and running out onto the great expanse of the Vale of York to the east, the Dales covers a relatively compact area of upland plateau fragmented by a number of main valley systems. The tumbling rivers of the Swale, Ure, Nidd, Wharfe and Aire all unite in the River Ouse, which, meeting the Trent, becomes the Humber as it runs into the North Sea. The Ribble, together with those streams gathered by the peripheral Lune, finds its freedom to the west in the Irish Sea, while Mallerstang alone drains northward along the Eden Valley to Carlisle and the Solway Firth. Feeding these main rivers is a multitude of lesser ones that gnaw deep into the heartland, creating a maze of smaller valleys and dales, each proclaiming its own subtly different character.

This variance is rooted in underlying geology and positional geography, and is also the product of elemental forces, but important too is the way man has settled and exploited the Dales over millennia. Farming, husbandry, woodland management, quarrying and mining have all left their mark on the slopes, and here, at least, it can be said that the cumulative efforts of successive generations has unconsciously helped in the creation of one of the loveliest landscapes in the country.
Although numerous lanes and tracks wind deep into the heart of the Dales, it is really only the leisurely freedom of pedestrian exploration that enables a true appreciation of its unique charm. This, the second of two volumes, is a wanderer’s guide to the northern and eastern parts of the area, savouring its ups, downs and endless in-betweens. The various walks seek out spectacular viewpoints, dramatic landforms, curious natural features and attractive hamlets and villages, but more than that, they simply delight in the subtly changing scenery. There is something for everyone in this guidebook, from gentle walks along valleys and hillsides, to more demanding upland romps that take in the high hills and remote moors of the hinterland. For the newcomer in particular, this is an invaluable companion. In addition to the route descriptions, there is background information on many of the features encountered along the way. While some routes are inevitably popular, many others take you off the beaten track to less-visited spots, and even those who know the Dales may well find new corners.
 

Evolution of the Landscape

Geological History
The unique character and unquestionable charm of the Yorkshire Dales has its roots in the underlying bedrock, much of which was created during the Carboniferous period 300 million years ago. At a time when, in other areas, massive coal, gas and oil fields were being laid down in the accumulating detritus of humid forest swamps, the area which has become the Dales lay beneath a shallow tropical sea. Here, the broken shells of countless marine creatures settled to form a bed of limestone over 200m thick. Known as the Great Scar Limestone, it dominates the scenery of the southwestern corner of the Yorkshire Dales National Park and underlies its central core.