Hello and welcome back to my Blog 😊.

This week I have enjoyed a few days walking in the Yorkshire Dales National Park, staying in the small town of Sedbergh, found on the western edge of the dales.

Sedbergh nestles beside the Howgill Fells, which were aptly described by Arthur Wainwright as ‘looking like a herd of sleeping elephants’.

Angela and I drove up the A1 and then headed west on the A684, crossing the beautiful Yorkshire Dales National Park. It was a nice picturesque drive with very little traffic. We were staying at Thorns Hall, a lovely grade 2 listed building, owned by the walking cooperative HF-Holidays. I have enjoyed many nice breaks with them over the years. https://www.hfholidays.co.uk/

On this guided walking break HF provide experienced walk leaders so that you can park your brain, and just enjoy being on the walk without having the challenge of navigating yourself.

For our first walk we were part of a group of four walkers plus the leader. Starting in Garsdale we ascended, with views of Dandrymire Viaduct, to the high moorland summits of Swarth Fell and then on to Wild Boar Fell, before crossing a patchwork of fields to the village of Ravenstonedale (the numerous small stile’s got tedious towards the end). 11 miles and 1,850 ft of ascent. We ascended into mist, but when we arrived at Wild Boar Fell trig point, the cloud had lifted and we had great views across to the Howgills. We met no one apart from a group of three men – the fells were quiet.

We both had enjoyed the walk and after a good evening meal and a night’s rest, we were eager for the next walk.

On day 2 we walked as a group of five together with a walk leader. Our route started in Sedbergh and we began by walking beside the river Rawthey towards the hamlet of Millthrop. We passed a nice weir.

From here we made our way across Frostrow Fell where I managed to get bitten three times by Horse Flies – I was not pleased because I always react to them. We picked our way across boggy ground to reach the high point – the trig point of Aye Gill Pike.

At the trig point we met a couple who were trig-point bagging with their cute dog. The dog was clearly used to having his photo taken sat on top of the trig point – apparently it had bagged over 170 trig points. I should have taken a photo!

We descended into Garsdale before walking beside the rivers Clough and Rawthey back into Sedbergh. We had great views of the Howgills and walked 11.4 miles with 1,893 ft of ascent.

Day 3 was billed as a hard walk with 2,898 ft of ascent, so Angela wisely decided to do a less strenuous walk. Our group of four hardy walkers, and leader, set off from Cautley and had a very steep ascent straight away to Yarlside. I was huffing and puffing on the way up. We had distant views of Cautley Spout (the highest waterfall in England) on the way.

The steep ascent was followed by a steep descent – this was somewhat easier to do.

I was loving this walk, the sun had even made an appearance.

We ascended to a saddle and then walked to the summit of Green Bell followed by a descent to the saddle and then up to the summit of Randygil Top where we had lunch.

After lunch we descended from Randygil Top then ascended Hooksey and walked along this plateau enjoying distant views. Finally, we descended, winding our way to Ravenstonedale and the pub!! We had walked 10 miles.

It had been a wonderful mini-break and we had both loved the area and the walks. We had enjoyed good company (thank you to Shirley and Catherine for their company and chat) and had been looked after extremely well by HF holidays.

We shall explore more of the Yorkshire Dales National Park in the future – there is much to see. https://www.yorkshiredales.org.uk/

Happy Walking! 😊🚶