The Dales Way. Terry Marsh

Weather

       Waymarking and paths

       Health, safety and emergencies

       Phones and Wi-Fi

       All about the region

       Geography

       Geology

       Plants and wildlife

       History and culture

       THE DALES WAY: ILKLEY TO BOWNESS

       Wharfedale

       Stage 1 Ilkley to Burnsall

       Stage 2 Burnsall to Buckden

       Langstrothdale and Dentdale

       Stage 3 Buckden to Cowgill (Lea Yeat)

       Stage 4 Cowgill (Lea Yeat) to Millthrop (Sedbergh)

       Lonsdale and the Lakeland Fringe

       Stage 5 Millthrop (Sedbergh) to Staveley

       Into Lakeland

       Stage 6 Staveley to Bowness-on-Windermere

       Appendix A Useful contacts

       Appendix B Accommodation along the route

       Appendix C Further reading

      Riverside loveliness along the Wharfe north of Burnsall (Stage 2)

ROUTE SUMMARY TABLE

      Lush meadows in Springtime, above Beckfoot (Stage 5)

      PREFACE

      It is 25 years since I worked on the first edition of this guidebook, and in the meantime, I have re-walked every part of the Dales Way more than once while working on other projects.

      When it came to this new edition, I again walked the route in its entirety between October 2016 and August 2017. The enchantment I experienced during that first effort has reduced not one iota – the Dales Way is every bit as beautiful and charming and agreeable as ever it was. In some ways, because odd kinks have been ironed out and some passages improved, the entire route is rather better than it was, although overall little has changed. This still ranks as the finest multi-day walking route in Britain on which to cut your teeth.

      Having several long-distance walks under my belt, I know the importance of maintaining daily progress, of not falling behind schedule, especially if time is limited. But I also know that too much progress can focus your mind more on the end of the walk rather than what there is to enjoy along the way. Keeping going, sticking to 22, 25, 28km (14, 16, 18 miles) each day, simply becomes a route march, and if you apply those tactics to the Dales Way you will be back home in no time, and possibly wondering what all the fuss was about, largely having missed the point.

      With so much of interest concentrated in so (comparatively) short a walk, for a full enjoyment of the process it is vital to allow time to explore and potter about, to paddle in the streams and rivers, to visit churches (and pubs), to get something of a feel for the lifestyle that permeates the course of the Way and of the history that has fashioned the land it traverses. Generally, it is not a bad idea to take your cue from the rivers you will follow – nowhere do they charge headlong, save for the odd moment of madness, preferring to meander gently, switching this way and that to inspect nooks and crannies, going with the flow. You should do the same.

      Terry Marsh

      January 2018

      Easy woodland walking around Brigflatts (Stage 5)

      INTRODUCTION

About the Dales Way

      The total distance of the Dales Way is 126km (78.5 miles), give or take a few strides. Officially, the Way begins in Ilkley, but there are links to Leeds, Bradford and Harrogate that introduce a special dynamic of starting in major urban centres and walking out into the countryside, to the shores of England’s largest lake. These links are not included in this guide, but details can be downloaded from www.dalesway.org/link_routes.htm.

      To begin with you will have the satisfaction of walking a significant length of Wharfedale, arguably the most appealing of the Yorkshire Dales, and later cross the Pennine watershed on Cam Fell, briefly meeting up with the Pennine Way in sight of the Yorkshire ‘Three Peaks’. After that, you are bound through Dentdale to the eponymous village of Dent and on to the market town of Sedbergh. The fringes of Lakeland and some of the most endearing landscapes the region has to offer bring the Way to a satisfying conclusion on the shores of Lake Windermere.

      The Dales Way is a monument to cooperation between the Countryside Commission and the West Riding group of the Ramblers’ Association (RA). With commendable vision, it was this arm of the RA that in the late 1960s foresaw the unquestionable appeal of a fine line through the valleys of the Dales and across the watershed of Britain into Cumbria, finally dropping to an abrupt end on the shores of the country’s largest lake. By pressing on to Windermere, the originators of the Way effectively and most attractively linked two of the country’s major national parks, the Lake District and the Yorkshire Dales – in fact, very little of the Dales Way is not in one national park or the other.

      The nature of the countryside through which the Dales Way passes is such that this is a far less demanding walk than other middle- and long-distance paths, and for that reason alone it is suited to walkers wanting either to complete the walk in sections, returning weekend after weekend until the whole route is covered, or those who want to experience multiple-day walking for the first time. That is not to say that the Dales Way is any kind of soft option: