Route Ref:  YD03

Back to Yorkshire Dales Routes

Whatever you do, don't tell your partner that this is just an easy afternoon ride over the hill to Settle and back. Not the easiest of starts, leaving Malham, north on the Malham Cove road and a fairly hard climb. In fact a bloody hard climb! If you need a stop you can use the view of Malham Cove as an excuse, coz you have to get a photo, don't you? Climb the road up to the bridleway on the left leading to Fair Sleets Gate. This about a quarter mile after the sharp right bend. The bridleway climbs gently to the col just north of Kirkby Fell before making a long descent via Stockdale Lane. Grassy up to the col and then hard track after the gate. Stockdale Lane takes you to the road into Settle. Nice rugged scenery of Attermire Scar to the north.

From Settle find the lane at the back of the market square (east side) and then make a right into a narrower lane which will lead you north contouring round the hillside. This track turns grassy and you need to make sure you take the right fork at GR824646. All the way along this track you get good views down over Langcliffe and north to Pen-y-ghent. Turn right at the road for one hundred yards and then onto another, hard track to Jubilee Caves. This track is ok as far as the gate a mile after Jubilee Caves. After the gate fork right/south east. It's riding on grass now which turns into a rutted, churned up mud bath. This route is used by scramblers which have made an absulute mess. At least the scramblers we saw got stuck in deeper mud than we did being heavier. It is heavy going along this section if wet and soft. When dried out it probably makes a fun technical stretch. The track starts to climb gently over the hill and the going gets firmer as you reach higher ground. It may be quite a relief when you at last get to the Malham road. Turn right, and don't blink as you will be back in Maham in no time, probably hitting Malham at about 50 mph or more. Watch out! This is a busy lane with walkers and all kinds of tourists.

If you did not take my advice at the start of this page then you deserve to spend the evening in the pub being nagged about the short afternoon ride. It took us over four hours on a fine day but the "scrambler" section was wet, soft and very slow hard work!

Start Malham Center Dale House GR 900629 - Road/Track 891640 - Road/Track 852639 - Track/Road 835630 - Settle - 819636 - Lane End 821638 - Track/Road 828653 - Road/Track 829653 - Gate 836653 - Wall End 851658 - Gta Gorebeck 862656 - Gate 855651 - Track/Road - 889649 - Malham

12.5 Miles, 20.12 Kms, 2392 Feet, 785 Metres, 19 Gates, 75% Off Road