Climbing envy ↑ all posts

The road out of the Lakes took me through Windermere and through Kendal where I obviously indulged in some mint cake. I headed east from Kendal along the southern edge of the Yorkshire Dales and into Giggleswick and Settle. These are cute little towns nestled at the foot of the hills, and there were some lovely views of cottages with smoking chimneys, with a backdrop of green fields criss-crossed by a network of dry-stone walls.

I couldn’t resist heading a bit off track to visit Malham Cove. This is an awe-inspiring limestone amphitheatre, the result of an enormous waterfall from a melting glacier 12,000 years ago. A smal river still flows from the base of the cliff, but the rock above is dry and has come to be regarded as one of the best limestone climbing areas in the country. Best doesn’t mean easy though: I had a look at a climber’s guidebook and the route descriptions sounded pretty brutal (out of roughly 100 routes, over 90 of them are 7a or harder… maybe a place to return to in a few years!)

I’d planned on continuing south, but a campsite in the village of Malham proved to be too tempting, and so I stopped for the night.