Yorkshire Dales Walks
Attermire Scar & Warrendale Knotts
Date: 23rd July 2006
Distance: 7 miles
Ascent: 2050 feet
Time: 3 hours 45 minutes
With: David
Start Grid Ref: SD819637
Walk Summary:
An interesting ramble above Settle visiting caves, a lovely waterfall and lots of limestone features.
Route Summary: Settle - Langcliffe - Lower Winskill - Catrigg Force - Winskill Stones - Jubilee Cave - Victoria Cave - Attermire Cave - Warrendale Knotts - Settle
Pictures:
1. Lower Winskill and Smearsett Scar
2. Catrigg Force
3. David looking over the edge to Catrigg Force
4. Ingleborough
5. Pen-y-Ghent
6. Winskill Stones with Ingleborough in the distance
7. The entrance to Victoria Cave
8. In Attermire Cave - without the flash it was pitch black
9. Warrendale Knotts from Attermire Scar
10. Looking back up at Attermire Scar
11. Warrendale Knotts
12. On the summit of Warrendale Knotts
13. Looking up Stockdale towards Rye Loaf Hill
14. Attermire Scar and the entrance to Victoria Cave
Walk Detail: This was my second walk with David and I picked this one because unlike our previous walk up Helvellyn he only wanted to go out for a shorter walk and get home early afternoon.
The scenery around Attermire Scar had made a big impression on me last time and I’d been wanting to visit the area again for a while.
The weather was fairly overcast to start off with and there was not much of a breeze so even the early stage of the walk and the climb up the side of Stainforth Scar was more tiring than it should have been.
At High Winskill we were momentarily stopped in our tracks by a bull that was stood directly on the other side of a cattle grid we had to cross. It was therefore with a mixture of relief and gratification that the bull actually ran off at the sight of us.
Catrigg Force was a truly lovely spot and is possibly the most beautifully situated waterfall I’ve yet seen. Shortly after leaving the delights of the falls two things happened. Firstly the sun came out in earnest and secondly half of the sole of David’s boot came off. As David kept saying he 'likes a challenge' and so he rather gamely carried on with his boot flapping about.
The scenery around Attermire Scar was just as good as I remembered it but this time I was much more adventurous and explored two of the three caves with the torch. First though we had our lunch sat above the entrance to Jubilee Cave where we took some rather tasteless pictures with a sheep skull.
There was not much to see in Jubilee Cave and we heeded the warning notices not to step inside Victoria Cave. Attermire Cave though was a different matter and it took a little scramble plus a short exposed ledge to bring us to the narrow entrance high above the valley. We walked quite a long way into the cave before I decided we’d gone far enough. The clamber down also demanded care and all in all it was one of the more exciting diversions I have made on my rambles.
To finish we climbed to the top of Warrendale Knotts where there was a much better view than on my last visit. David didn’t want to go back down the same way so by heading due west we managed, with a bit of scrambling, to find our way back to the path we’d first climbed out of Settle on.
All in all a nice little walk which had a mixture of the exciting (Attermire Cave) and the beautiful (Catrigg Force) with large helpings of French comedy courtesy of David and his flapping boot soles.
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