Malham

'No summits but plenty of sights'

Date: 12 August 2012                                       Start time: 11:22

Start point: Yorkshire Dales Visitor Centre, Malham - SD899626

Walkers: Mark Illingworth, Emma Lever

Distance: 11.67miles                                       Time: 5:05:54 

Route: Turn L out of Visitor Centre car park then cross road R opposite pub and follow 'Pennine Way' S out of village. After kissing gate, follow path L into National Trust wooded area and up around Janet's Foss waterfall all the way to road. Turn R on road, walk past lay-by and take gate L into campsite. Follow path N through camp site to Gordale Scar. Retrace steps back to road, turn R and take path behind lay-by through gate. At wall, head through gate R and go uphill to stile at gap in wall. Continue N up steep hillside then follow top E to steps at top of N chamber of Gordale Scar. Descend steps down to see upper chamber then retrace up steps and take wall stile on path NW. Follow path NW through field to intersection of walls. Head over wall stile and take stoney track N towards Great Close Plantation. Take path around N of plantation towards Malham Tarn. Follow 'Pennine Way' S-SW to car park for tarn. Cross road, head to gate R then follow 'Pennine Way' S to Ing Scar Crag. After descending to valley below, follow path SSE to Malham Cove through gate stile. Turn R and walk over limestone pavement to top of stepped path down. At bottom, head L through gate to see face of Malham Cove before picking up obvious path S away from cove to meet road. Follow road back through village to car park.

Weather: Blustery though not cold. Overcast with the odd very light spot of rain. Blue sky was rare. Immediate visability was ok but long rang visibility was hazy and poor.

Notes: The Country Walking Magazine route we followed was called Malham Cove, but that takes something away from the rest of the natural wonder you walk through, by and over on this walk, so I felt a wider name was deserved.

The first stop is Janet's Foss Waterfall (Foss being the Nordic for Force). A fairly powerful downfall in the midst of a pleasant National Trust maintained wood. The pool at the bottom was a family gathering area - an enthusiastic dog splashing was more enjoyable than the noise of children though. Possibly the ruining feature of this site is its too near a road. Families, lazy people, and even pushchairs can get there. But I shouldn't let that cast a shadow over an impressive natural feature. The waterfall has a strange 'wall' behind it that looks like mineral deposits that have built up. It prevents you from standing under the fall where the fairy Janet apparently resided in a cave.

Gordale Scar deserves the star treatment it gets on the OD Explorer map. Having never been here before we weren't sure what to expect as we head through a campsite, on to a clear path, that disappears round a corner into a limestone crevasse. What we saw was a massive WOW moment. Sheer and overhanging rock faces narrowing and channeling to a water forged drop with waterfalls stepped one on top of the other. Climbers head up the beyond vertical walls of the scar. Adventurous walkers could scramble through the waterfall to the upper chamber. I sat and watched a couple of guys do it. I consider myself an adventurous walker, but this looked beyond me with all the water. I'd blame it on my heavy lunch and waterproofs loaded backpack or on Emma's lack of skills, but really, I think it looked a bit dicey and I was scared off the idea. A steep hill climb and quick stepped descent was our was to the upper chamber and this way you got great views down into Gordale Scar from high up. The limestone valley at the top was equally wonderous, if not as striking as the scar below.

Malham Tarn is a national nature reserve, but obviously not a reserve for fish because we saw a few boats out there fishing - I didn't know you were allowed to fish in a nature reserve. It would've been better if you could shoot the ducks, they were annoying me. People must feed them often as a couple of them approached us repeatedly after out sandwiches, but we managed to shoo them away. We couldn't shoo away quickly enough the puppy handled by a family of absolute clownshoes as it climbed all over Emma. We sat on the eastern shore of the tarn, which is where the footpath goes, but maybe not the best for views. Especially in the dull hazy weather with no distant visibility. We had Highfolds Scar to the north in the corner of our eyes but Great Close Hill behind might have made a more interesting visual backdrop to our picnic stop.

Ing Scar doesn't get the star treatment on the map. Its a little smaller than Gordale Scar and the dry little limestone valley it creates down to Malham Cove might well be missed by most visitors to the area aside from Pennine Wayers and those particularly keen to walk up to the tarn. This is a shame as it is no less wondrous than the rest of the limestone creations nature has given us in this corner of the Dales.

Malham Cove rounds off the walk of wonders we went on and does so in spectacular style. This place, remarkably, lies off access land, but you wouldn't know it. There are people everywhere. And its clear why. The limestone pavement is the finest high level example of this type of scenery around. It isn't completely clear of grasses and certainly feature plenty of plant life in it's cracks, but the rocks are pretty bare and a little other worldly. The touristy path up, the amount of children and non-walkers would annoy me in many places, but this place isn't just a 'highest peak' like the Ben or Snowdon, its a real natural wonder. People should come and see it - all sorts of people. That's just on the top too. When you get to the bottom you get another WOW moment when you look up at the white chalky limestone cliff face. You might be lucky enough to see a falcon or two in the right time of year as well.

This truly was a walk of wonders and worth tripping around despite the crowds in places.