free to be able to rate and comment on reports (as well as access 1:25000 mapping).
A long roller-coaster walk to complete the Yorkshire Dales Hewitts.
Stuck out on the west of the range, far nearer to the Lake District both in character and distance than to the farmlands of Wharfedale and Wensleydale, the Howgills are nothing like other Dales hills. The slopes are much steeper, there isn’t a drystone wall to be seen for miles, and the valleys are not broad and green but sharply defined Vs cut by fast-flowing streams. The going underfoot is good though, even offpath, on firm shortish grass with very few of the hags and marshes found on the heights further east - and while there isn’t much rock breaking through the grass, where it does around the high falls of Cautley Spout it does so dramatically.
There isn’t too much parking at Cross Keys (full up by 10am on Saturday) or too many options nearby, considering that this spot offers an easy tourist’s walk to Cautley Spout, so this is probably a route only for midweeks or early starters. Everyone was heading there, and perhaps continuing to The Calf, not many turning north…
- Great Dummacks
- Cautley Spout between Cautley Crag and the slopes of Yarlside
- Cautley Spout
- Cautley Crag
The daunting wedge of Yarlside doesn’t seem to fit into any natural route and there seems little evidence that anyone bar a few sheep has previously been this way up, to the right of the stream from Bowderdale Head (steep), or down, to the Saddle before Kensgriff (even steeper, precipitously so…). I’d invested in a steadying walking pole - quite probably to be used once and once only! - out of trepidation about past reports of the latter route, and it might well have helped, but it’s still a painstakingly careful zigzag and definitely to be avoided if at all slippery.
- Baugh Fell over Cautley Holme Beck
- Red Gill Beck rising to Calders on the skyline, slopes of The Calf right
- Kensgriff & Grere Fell
- Down Little Randy Gill to Bowderdale and West Fell
- Back to the steep descent of Yarlside (from the top right, diagonally across the scree and then straight down the middle!)
The next few miles are a relentless series of ups and quite deep downs, if not quite as tough as those first slopes, over Kensgriff, Randygill Top, and Hazelgill Knott, and – although following the valley of West Grain up towards Fell Head is initially easier – like most ‘follow-stream’ routes it ultimately steepens and tightens until you are scrambling breathlessly out for the ridge.
- Swarth Fell over the Rawthey valley from Kensgriff
- The Calf, Bush Howe & Fell Head, from near Hazelgill Knott
- Langdale
Once up at Fell Head, out on a limb looking over the M6 towards what (without this day’s haze) could well have been a long view of Lakeland, the hard work is done – only gentle slopes on the high ridge from there to Calders, even flat enough to hold a little water in places. The Calf itself, the hub of this range, brings the first close-up signs in hours of recent human visitation – a trig, a made ‘motorway’ north-south path (actually pretty grinding on tiring feet), and relative crowds of people.
- Grayrigg Forest over the M6 from Fell Head, and some hazy Lakes shadows...
- White Fell Head, rising to The Calf (top left)
- Looking down Long Rigg Beck
From Calders, set on the edge of a pretty dramatic drop to the south, it’s more pathless but easy walking following Red Gill Beck down past a series of little falls to a beautifully resculptured sheepfold (
http://www.sheepfoldscumbria.co.uk/html/info/info00.htm), and then the carefully-stepped tourist path back down past Cautley Spout. The falls themselves, having carved a deeply wooded and inaccessible gorge, are out of sight for much of this, and probably better seen from below.
- Arant Haw from Calders
- Falls in Red Gill Beck
- The Goldsworthy sheepfold, Yarlside behind
- Falls in Red Gill Beck, above Cautley Spout
This was a pretty tiring and slightly unnatural ‘bagger’s route’, but there seem to be plenty of other options for an easy day out in good and unusual walking country – the long approach to The Calf up Bowderdale and a circuit of the southern foothills looked especially tempting for another day.