Gordale Scar and Malham Cove

Over the Easter weekend me and Denise headed up to Yorkshire for a couple of days, as we had booked places on the Introduction to Lichen course that was being run by the Field Studies Council at Malham Tarn House.

We drove up on the Thursday and camped overnight at Holm Farm in Horton in Ribblesdale. As the reviews state, this is a fairly basic campsite, but it did us for one night. The owner was friendly, the loo was clean, with running water and soap. Friday morning we drove over to the field centre and left the car there while we headed out for a walk.

The plan was to walk down Gordale Scar, past Janet’s Foss, through Malham, up Malham Cove and back to the field centre. All went well until we got to Gordale Scar. The footpath runs through the fissure in the rock and during dry weather should be fairly easy. However, there had been a lot of rain recently and the water was pouring down the scar.

As we descended the steep path towards the fissure we met a group coming up. They had been going down but most of them decided that it was too risky to carry on, although some of their party had kept on going. I went down to have a look and decided that the first lot had made the wisest move. There was an a great deal of water cascading down through the narrow gap. It was quite deep in places, very fast flowing and the rocks were very slippery. Finding a way down looked decidedly tricky. Its quite a long way down to the valley floor so a slip would have been very nasty indeed.

Having decided not to proceed I climbed back up to where Denise had made her way down to. We stood discussing the situation and admiring the force of the water.

We noticed a party of four coming up the waterfall. The two women and one of the men managed to climb up the far bank and then cross the water, but the final chap was obviously having some difficulty in getting up the last step. He kept trying to find a hand hold but couldn’t find one he was happy with. The other chap was obviously looking round for ways to help but quickly ran out of ideas. Having seen how far up from the valley floor the final step was I appreciated how uncomfortable the two guys must have felt.

The picture on this page shows the view from the bottom. It wasn’t quite this wet when we were there and this group had managed to scramble up the right hand side, with this one chap getting stuck just under the triangular shaped rock on the right hand side.

I was worried that if this chap was finding it hard going then he would not be able to commit fully to the moves needed to get him over the final step and either he would fall off, or have to retreat, causing difficulty in becoming separate from the rest of his party. I therefore dropped my rucksack, retrieved my confidence rope from the bottom of my pack and climbed back down to offer my assistance. I crossed the stream to meet the younger guy and asked if they wanted the rope. He said yes, but said he didn’t know how to use a rope. However, the older chap had done some climbing apparently.

I tied an overhand in the rope, looped the end round and anchor and rethreaded the overhand knot. I created a loop and tied a figure of eight on a bight, which a secured around my waist. I then asked the chap coming up if he was able to tie himself in. He said he could so I gave him the end of the rope. Once tied in I took in the slack and belayed him. It was obviously enough to give him the confidence he needed as he was able to climb over the final step and rejoin his party. He was very grateful for the assistance and said he owed me a pint. However, other than saying that he was from Sheffield I have no idea who he was so its unlikely that I will be able to collect that pint. Anyway, I was glad that I could offer some assistance and that I had decided to carry the rope with me. I would have been really annoyed had I seen this guy struggling and not been able to help because I had decided to leave the rope behind.

Having decided not to go down Gordale Scar we climbed back up the steep path and headed across the top of New Close Knotts, then followed the road for a bit before heading across to Sherriff Hill and then the top of Malham Cove and the famous Limestone pavement.

Leaving the top of Malham Cove we headed North and followed the Penine Way all the way back to the Field Centre. On the way we passed a couple of caves in the side of the limestone and the sink holes where the water from Malham Tarn disappears under ground, to emerge at the base of the cove.