Country Great Whernside diary FACT FILE ➤ Distance: 12.25km (7.6miles) F you walk along the rivers Tyne, Tees or Walks ➤ Time: 5 – 6 hours Wear in autumn, it’s likely that the gentle ➤ Maps: OS Explorer OL30 I sound of rippling water will be by Mark Reid ➤ Start/Parking: Car park near interrupted by the splash of leaping fish, the bridge across the River Wharfe at Kettlewell because this is the time of year when Ylast walk up to the top of one of ➤ Refreshments: Pubs and salmon and trout head upstream to spawn. the Yorkshire Dales 600s (Great Driven by blind instinct, they swim against cafes at Kettlewell. No facilities Shunner Fell – July 2010) provoked en route the current to spawn in the shallow upper a flurry of correspondence about reaches of rivers, where they themselves M ➤ Terrain: Grassy paths, steep the suitability of such a walk. I in places, lead up from hatched from eggs. whole-heartedly agree that variety of location, Kettlewell to reach Hag Dyke, Carving a shallow furrow with their tails in terrain and type of walk is important. With this from where a boggy path the river gravel, they lay thousands of eggs, in mind, since that Great Shunner Fell walk ap- climbs steeply up across open that account for a quarter of their body peared in this column, I have featured four low- moorland onto the rocky weight. level routes in County Durham and near Rich- summit ridge of Great Reaching their spawning grounds means mond, three coastal routes, two walks in the Whernside. The summit is leaping barriers along the way and if you’re Yorkshire Dales and a moorland walk in the exposed to the elements. A lucky –and if there has been heavy rain that North York Moors. Throughout the year, I aim to rocky/boggy path follows the increases the water flow –you can produce a variety of walks to appeal to different summit ridge before dropping sometimes watch dozens of fish leaping abilities and aspirations – it’s just a case of pick- steeply down along a rough waterfalls. ing the right walk for you. So, if you love fell- path to reach the unfenced A few years ago, we watched several walking in the Yorkshire Dales, then this is the Coverdale road. frantic fish struggling to leap the waterfall at perfect walk. In fact, it is one of the best horse- ➤ How to get there: Kettlewell Spurleswood Beck, in Hamsterley Forest, shoe walks in this region, a walk of contrast and lies along the B6160 in Upper hurling themselves at the wall of water and delight throughout. Wharfedale. ➤ plunging back into the deep pool below, There are 42 mountains and fells in the York- Caution: This is a strenuous shire Dales with a height of 600 metres or walk up to the summit of Great using the upwelling current and summoning Whernside (704 metres). There the power of their tail fins for repeated more, and a relative height of over 20 metres. Here is the sixth of the northern and central are steep drops and rocky Based on Ordnance attempts. sections. Map, compass and Yorkshire Dales – Great Whernside (704m). Survey mapping During the journey to their spawning hill-walking gear essential. Do grounds, they expend vast amounts of From Kettlewell, a wonderful grassy path not attempt this walk in poor © Crown copyright: energy and are incapable of feeding, but heads steadily up alongside the deep cleft of visibility or bad weather. AM26/09 they still leap for insects fluttering above the Dowber Gill Beck as far as Hag Dyke. This 18th river surface –which accounts for the Century farmhouse has been used as a Scout to reach an edge of land high above Dowber the right of the cattle grid (sign bridleway splashes that are so often heard along our Hostel since 1947. This is one of the highest Gill Beck (signpost), with steep drops down only) and follow this track bearing left across rivers at this time of year. buildings in the country that even has its own into this narrow valley. The grassy path now the flat, grassy moorland (with the wall just You are only likely to catch a momentary chapel in a converted hay-barn that stands as levels out and leads straight on through three to your left) for 750 metres to reach a glimpse of these fine fish when they leap out the highest chapel in England, opened in 1954 small gates (Dowber Gill Beck down to your gate/stile in a wall corner. Head through the to serve the scout groups that use Hag Dyke. of the water, but many die after spawning, right) before climbing up again (signpost) then gate and continue on along the clear, undulat- Great Whernside towers above Upper either through exhaustion or disease, and bending to the right through a large gap in a ing rough path alongside the wall on your left Wharfedale, an immense shoulder of high are sometimes washed up on the tumbledown wall, after which head up along skirting around the head of the valley of Cam moorland that separates Wharfedale from Nid- the grassy path to reach Hag Dike (Scout Hos- Gill Beck (crossing a number of small riverbanks. derdale; this is Wharfedaleâ ™s highest fell If you find one, take a close look at the tel). streams), through another gate (Top Mere and one of the finest in the Yorkshire Dales. Gate) and carry straight on (wall bends away lower jaw, which in breeding fish develops a The boulder-strewn flat summit ridge is a distinctive hook, called a kype, that will Turn right through the gate into the yard of to the left) to reach a fork in the track (junc- rocky shelf of gritstone, punctuated by boul- 2Hag Dike (signpost Coverdale Road via tion of Starbotton Road with Top Mere Road). confirm its identity. ders and crags including Blackfell Crags. This Great Whernside) then follow the path to the Phil Gates cap of gritstone across the high summit ridge right immediately before the old farm build- At this junction, bear left (sign Kettlewell) sits on top of the underlying limestone strata ings through a small gate, then head left 5and follow the clear track gently dropping that dominates the landscape of Upper through another gate passing behind the old down across the open moorland of Cam Head Wharfedale – it is this gritstone that gave the farmhouse along a distinct path climbing to reach a gate across your path after 600 me- mountain its name for Whernside means ‘the quickly but steeply up a rocky escarpment tres. Continue straight on along the grassy Birdwatch hillside where millstones were got’. Great Wh- onto a flat plateau (surmounted by a line of track heading down across the grassy moor- ernside is often mistaken for Whernside above stone cairns). Head straight on along the clear- land for a further 600 metres to reach another E’VEbeen so focused on arrivals of Ribblehead, which forms one of the famous gate at the top of a walled stony track (Top Three Peaks of Yorkshire. ly waymarked path (marker posts) as it mean- off-course migrant songbirds of ders across the gently rising boggy moorland Mere Road). Carry straight on along this WRussian origin this month that a A short but steep descent from the summit walled track gradually dropping down for 1.25 ridge brings you to the unfenced moorland for 700 metres to reach the foot of the steep sudden wave of Arctic region raptors came summit ridge – boulder-strewn summit ridge of km (Wharfedale in the distance) before a final as something of a surprise. road on the watershed between Wharfedale steep descent to join the metalled road on a and Coverdale, known as Hunters Sleets. A Great Whernside directly ahead. As you reach Winter-visiting rough-legged buzzards the foot of the steep summit ridge, follow the sharp bend just above Kettlewell. Follow this usually trickle into Britain from more northerly deep earthwork stretches for almost a mile path slanting quite steeply up to the right road straight on steeply down into Kettlewell. latitudes around now but there has been a across this saddle of land. This is Tor Dike, a across the steep bank then, where the gradient significant acceleration since the October 13 huge ditch and rampart that once formed part eases slightly, head straight up across the boul- Mark Reid first appearance. Had the prevailing wind not of a defensive system built by the early British der-strewn hillside to reach the rocky escarp- Author of ˜The Inn Way guidebooks switched to westerly over the weekend there Iron Age tribes, collectively known in the innway. co.uk might have been more. As it was at least 30 North of England as the Brigantes, in an at- ment and the summit plateau of Great Whern- had been reported up to Tuesday, mostly tempt to prevent the Romans invading the side with its large cairn and trig point (SE 002 between Yorkshire and Essex, with another northern Dales. The final part of this walk fol- 739) three on Orkney and Shetland. lows the old monastic route known as Top Over a third, however, were in our region’s Mere Road between Coverham Abbey and Ket- At the trig point on the summit turn left south-east, with – apart from one at Filey on tlewell. This ancient walled lane forms a su- 3(north) and walk along the clear path across Monday – sightings concentrated between perb end to this walk with far-reaching views.