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Route No 71 - 31 March 2003 to 3 April 2003
A few days walking from the Sportsmans Inn,
Cowgill, Dentdale
Map: OS Explorer OL2 Yorkshire Dales Southern & Western areas at 1:25000
had our lunch on one of the picnic tables with a nice view of the
river and the falls. So it was about 12.30 when we finally got going
along the path upstream passed a farm called Bear Park. A few fields
beyond the farm is a sign provided by the National Park Service
informing walkers that the OS have wrongly marked the path on some
editions of the map (my map is quite elderly and was the one that
was wrong) so we followed the signs and everything was OK. The path
followed a disused railway for a few hundred metres before crossing
to the riverbank. We walked along the river and the disused railway
for about 4km to Nappa Mill (map ref. SD 961906).
Here we almost turned back on our route to follow the path up hill
to 
formation
pock-marked with small caves. The path here is called Oxclose Road
on the map. We turned off this path to descend into Carperby. From
the village we took the path across the fields (from Low Lane) back
to the visitor centre. We left our rucsacks in the car and walked
down stream to see the middle and lower falls. The sun was getting
low in the sky and was shining directly down stream making any photography
of the falls very difficult. The woods were carpeted with wood anenomies
- lovely delicate little flowers. The whole route was about 16km
and took us about four and a half hours including a couple of quite
long stops in the sun. We drove up to the Sportsmans Inn at Cowgill
near Dent and sampled the Black Sheep bitter until it was time to
eat.
The
next day, Tuesday 1 April, the weather was bad. I woke
up to the sound of heavy rain, and from 7.00am to 8.30am the beck
in front of the pub rose by over a foot and turned from a clear
stream to a brownish torrent. Not a good sign. We decided to take
advantage of this weather and drove to Ingleton and walked the
7km round the
The
next morning, Wednesday 2 April, was bright and cold with
a stiff breeze. We planned to climb Whernside, 736m. and left
the Sportsmans Inn at about 9.00am. We drove into Dent to get
some sandwiches, then off to the old methodist chapel at map ref.
SD723859 about 2km out of Dent. There is room to park maybe 4
cars on the grass verge beside the church and there is an honesty
box for a small donation for parking there. We set off up the
lane at the side of the chapel for about 250m to map ref. SD 724857
where we turned left onto a bridleway to begin the climb up Whernside.
We followed the bridleway for 
about
2km. to a wall corner at map ref. SD 746846. Here we turned right
to follow the wall up the ridge of Whernside. There is no path
shown on the map but there is a well walked path on the ground.
The path goes by the Whernside tarns and is known as the "Tarns
Route". It rejoins the public footpath at map ref. SD 741825.
From there we continued along the ridge for just over 1km to the
trig point at the summit. It was a lovely clear day with bright
sunshine and fast moving clouds, quite warm in the sun but the
fresh wind got very cold indeed by the time we reached the top
and just after the tarns we put on out top layer of 
clothing
and wooly hat and gloves. The overnight ice on the pools had not
yet melted. We were very glad of the comfortable stone windbreak
with seats that has been erected just over the wall from the trig
point. We sat there for about 15 minutes for a drink and a sandwich,
looking out to a wonderful view of Ingleborough across the valley.
The scenery all round and all the way up is breathtaking, with
views into the Howgill Fells and across to the Lake District one
way and out across the Yorkshire Dales the othe way. Finally we
had to tear ourselves away from the summit 
views and we headed off west on a path down to the road at map
ref. SD 722818 about 2km from the trig point. At the road we turned
right and followed the road for about 600m to map ref. SD 723823.
Here we turned left onto an old green road. It climbs up for about
1.5km and then contours round the hill. Large sections of the
green road have been badly erroded by vehicles making the walking
quite difficult. We followed it for almost 6km from the road to
a path at map ref. SD 698859 above Dent village. We followed this
path down beside the rocky gorge of Flinter Gill into the village.
We found a cafe and stopped for a coffee and a toasted teacake.
Then we walked along the road out of the village to the Dales
Way route at map ref. SD 707871. From here we followed the Dales
Way up the valley to the road at map ref. SD 721861 and then walked
the 250m up the road to our starting point at the old methodist
chapel. The whole route was about17km and took us almost 6 hours
including our stops. 
