Walking the 41 Dales Mountains with the Kids. The whole kit and caboodle.
Just over a year ago I created a challenge. To complete the 41 Yorkshire Dales mountains within one year with the kids.
It may seem like that’s not a big challenge, after all the Yorkshire Dales doesn’t have PROPER mountains does it…? Well. I might be here to challenge that perception.
Because it absolutely does.
This was a challenge that presented more than just a ‘challenge’. It was much more than simply climbing the mountains.
Why 41 mountains?
I am still asking this question now! But in this story of bagging mountains, I opted for the belt and braces approach, based on…(waiting for an intake of breath) a list I found on the Internet.
Yes, you might have heard of the Dales 30, as written about in the book by Jonathon Smith and undoubtedly you will have heard of the Nuttalls who categorised 39 of the Dales’ ‘reyt high places’ as mountains.
And then… we found somebody who had added an extra couple in on the internet… and I REALLY didn’t want to have to go back up to bag them again in case this guy was right. Can you imagine what the kids would have said?!
So, we settled on the magic number. 41.
The Dales Mountains, more than just a challenge!
Whilst actually deciding which mountains to bag was a challenge in itself, the next one was making some of these massively long and often difficult adult walks, kid-sized. So, as every great adventure should begin, I grabbed my trusty OS map and started to plan.
If you’re not familiar with the Dales, you’ll be forgiven for not realising just how far away from each other a lot of these peaks are! We’re not talking a quick nip up to the top and back down in time for lunch, oh no. In the pursuit of perhaps just one or two mountains at a time, we had to navigate miles and miles of often completely desolate and remote landscape, regularly with incredibly challenging terrain. (Bogs. I’m talking about bogs.)
Navigation skills are an absolute must when it comes to this challenge. Because these are not the well walked paths of the Wainwrights. Far from it. We are talking some peaks that see 5 people in a year (Yockenthwaite Moor. I’m talking to YOU), we’re talking walking on Open Access Land, with no path in sight, and this happened so frequently that I creäted the title ‘a pathless wonder’ to crown some of the most remote of these bad boys.
If you’re taking on the challenge, an OS paper map, backed up with the OS Maps App and a compass are absolutely essential because you aren’t going to see another soul on most of these mountains. And when the cloud comes down on featureless terrain, it’s not an easy situation to navigate your way out of and with the kids in tow, it’s a whole other level of Haribo motivated hiking!
About bogs
Special mention to the bogs. Because never have I ever encountered so many bogs! Mainly helped along by the wonderfully wet year we had!
We met vast expanses of bog that were tricky to negotiate. In fact, Plover Hill’s bog required us to make a makeshift bridge! Fortunately for me, everybody found that hilarious. We traversed peat hags (think bog cliffs) so extensive that the terrain resembled some kind of peat-based moonscape and all joking aside, the bogs presented quite a tough challenge in themselves, often forcing us to create quite lengthy detours to avoid them.
So yes. Bogs and I now have quite a special relationship!
How on EARTH did you keep the kids going?
It’s the age-old question. How do you get your kids to hike? My honest answer is…. snacks.
Whilst of course I’m kind of joking, I’m also not. Yes. Just as a long-distance runner will be constantly refuelling as they go, so is the rule for kids and hiking! After all, us parents will know that a kid who’s hungry, is a kid who’s moaning. And quite rightly! We’d all be complaining loudly if we were hungry, so on these occasions, the kids have free reign over the snacks and eat when they want to.
As much as snacks are a win, they will only get you so far and as we all know, mountains HURT! So, of course there was moaning (and that was just me) but who else likes to know exactly what they’re getting themselves in for? The details of a hike, the nitty gritty parts are super helpful to know as a grown up AND as a kid! Is there a steep up, followed by a really long bit and then a steep descent? Is there an ice cream at the end? Is there something cool to see along the way? My kids love information and that’s what helps get them through a hike! (Unless it’s one of those long slog pathless wonders I mentioned earlier, then adult and kid complaint levels are 100% on a par!)
Oh and last tip? Walking games. Games like what’s in my rucksack (a memory game) the name game (where you have to name famous people starting with the first letter of the last name of the one going before…) or the story game where everybody in the group adds to the story as you go. Believe me, that can certainly go to some strange places!
Our Three Favourite Walks from the Mountain Challenge
If we’ve learned something from this challenge, it’s that there’s a reason that some of these mountains aren’t very well walked!
But in doing it, we’ve managed to explore some incredible parts of the Dales and we discovered some places we’ll revisit time and time again.
First up? The Mallerstang Edge Fells
In the planning process, this walk was one that proved the most troublesome, because it was truly pathless in places. I planned and replanned it more times than any of the others, It had an incredibly steep ascent, one of the steepest I have ever encountered (that’s not a rock face!) and in terms of safety, I questioned right up until the day we did it whether the kids could handle the gradient (they could, better than me!)
Whilst it was tough, it was possibly one of the most rewarding we did! And in a massive deviation from the norm, luck was one our side and we had a beautifully clear day which meant the views were absolutely stunning.
But not only that it had so much going on! With plenty of exciting cairns, towers and sculptures. The route I’d planned passed the Water Cuts Sculpture and it crossed Hell Gill Bridge (the kids love a legend and this one was ‘built by the devil’ apparently…) and it’s one I would do again any day!
Next up…The Calf (and its buddies)
I can sum this one up in one line. I LOVE the Howgills.
The Howgills are some of the most unique mountains in the Yorkshire Dales, they have their own character, and you can tell why Alfred Wainwright called them the ‘sleeping elephants’. Because they are big old mountains but grassy, lush and curvaceous.
The Calf is the highest point in the Howgills and the walk we did to it presented us with plenty of challenges (including zero visibility at the top!) It’s one of the few walks we did where you could bag several mountains at once, and it’s still up there with my favourites and I will absolutely be doing it again!
And finally… Buckden Pike
It’s where we started and it’s the one we did twice during the challenge (because the road was flooded for the one we actually wanted to do, so let’s class it as a bonus mountain, a one for luck!)
Buckden Pike is such a great mountain for the kids to tackle. Whilst it’s steep in places, the full circular is short (in terms of Dales mountains at least) and you’ll get abandoned mines, legends and waterfalls too a winning trio in my humble opinion.
Ultimately, the challenge was completed in 22 walks, across 1 year (and 1 day… but shh…. What’s a day between friends?!) In total, the real ascent was in excess of 11,250m (nearly 37,000 feet) and the total number of KM walked was over 250 (155 miles).
(…And I haven’t even mentioned having to fit this challenge in around the social lives of an 8 & 10 year old! Which was probably the ultimate trial!)
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By Sam Brown
Sam Brown is an OS Champion, her website The Reluctant Explorers, is a treasure trove of family adventures to be had in Yorkshire.
