Pennine Way: Day 6 - Malham to Horton-in-Ribblesdale

Saturday 6th September

Distance: 23.5km; Ascent:790m; with Lynsey

See approximate route in new window

Our journey northwards on the Pennine Way reached Malham Cove several months ago on a cold snowy Easter Monday.  Now we were back again with the intention of walking from Malham to Hawes over the course of the weekend.  Careful studying of the various train and bus timetables had suggested that the most logical way of doing this was to get to Settle by train or car, from where we could take a bus to Malham.  Then from Hawes it would be possible to get a taxi a few miles west to Garsdale Station, where we could then catch a train back to Settle.

Therefore we were up early today to drive up to Settle, where we intended to leave the car for the weekend.  We arrived in plenty of time for the first bus of the day to Malham at 10:30am to allow us time to find somewhere suitable to park.   However this proved to be easier than expected as the man at the station ticket office allowed us to park at the station providing we bought our tickets now for tomorrow.

And so just after 11:00am we set off walking from the National Park visitor centre in Malham and wandered up through the village to pick up the busy track up to Malham Cove.  As we had a long way to go, we didn't linger here; however I took plenty of photos here on our walk from Malham to Settle via Malham Cove back at Easter.

Looking down Watlowes

After climbing up to the top of the cove and clambering over the impressive limestone pavement, we were soon in the lovely dry limestone valley of Watlowes.  There were good views back down towards the cove and on into the upper valley surrounded by limestone crags.

In Watlowes

Soon we reached Malham Tarn, whose pleasant shore we followed before crossing a road and beginning the main ascent of the day up onto Fountains Fell, whose summit area shows some evidence of coal mining in the past.  We dropped down to the road to the west, with good views of our next objective: Pen-y-Ghent.

Pen-y-Ghent

At around 6pm we reached the summit of Pen-y-Ghent (Marilyn, Nuttall).  After a bit of a break on the summit, we descended along the Pennine Way to reach the village of Horton-in-Ribblesdale, where we intended to stay for the night.  We set our tent up on the campsite and headed to the nearby pub for dinner after a long day's walking.

Written up in November 2012 from photos and memories