Ramblin’ Rosie: Settle to Malham

It’s been a busy weekend for the Ramblers. Following yesterday’s outing, today we’re deep in enemy territory Yorkshire. You can tell we’re in Yorkshire because they want to charge for the use of the loos in Settle, the busy market town where we begin. They aren’t particularly salubrious loos either, but you can tell we’re from Barrow because we make creative use of trekking poles to evade the charges while ensuring privacy.

And, thus relieved, we set off with an immediate climb from the former A65, and it’s a toughie – much the toughest C walk I’ve been on with the ramblers. It’s an hour before we’re on the high limestone moor, and suddenly it’s a delight to walk on a soft carpet of sheep-cropped grass on high-level limestone moor amongst crags and caves. It’s easy up here, which is just as well because the day is getting decidedly warm. This splendid walking takes us right up to Malham Tarn, a rare stretch of water in this area, from which we’ll complete our journey on the Pennine Way. The scenery is nice but not heart-stopping until the tarn. And then things get decidedly better. And worse.

First there is Malham Lings, a spectacular limestone gorge through which we pass on an ankle-twisting stony track. This track turns sharply and descends steeply on rough rock before levelling again and reverting to soft grass. And then we’re at the lip of stunning Malham Cove, with its limestone pavement (good to walk on if you’re very careful) and views over the Aire Valley. From there, there’s a steep stone staircase to descend to the foot of the cove. Very nasty, though nowhere near as knee-wrenching as the descent from Nab Scar in the Lakes. And then it’s an east descent to Malham village and a more-than-usually welcome pint of Copper Dog from the local Skipton microbrewery.

I’ve been sloppy so far about annotated photo sets, mainly because I take so many photos, but there’s one for this ramble here.