Setket two

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I walked this route from Settle to Kettlewell on a gorgeous fall day.

The route begins with a long and strenuous climb out of Settle. You're rewarded with stunning views on the ascent, and even some caves to check out on the way!

A nice long stretch on bridleway means the surface conditions are comfortable and easy for walking. The views are stunning!

The route leaves the bridleway south of Henside Road, where it follows a much-less-welcoming footpath - when we walked it, parts were pretty boggy. The line of the footpath on the map doesn't 100% match the footpath in reality, but it was always obvious where to walk.

The stretch around Malham Tarn is lovely, a bit of forested walking on an otherwise exposed route. There are public toilets at the field centre at Malham Tarn.

By far for me the highlight of the route was the stretch from Malham Tarn to Arncliffe, which was some amazing high moorland walking. It's tricky coming down the steep hill into Arncliffe, but the views are tremendous. It's an incredible section of walking, and looking back up the valley you just descended when in Arncliffe makes you feel like a real explorer! Amazing.

The walk between Arncliffe and Kettlewell is challenging - a steep uphill and a steep downhill. The views at the top are goregous, but there are stome steep sections that require sure-footing.

Overall, this route gets five stars as an epic, incredible, amazing, awesome, exhilarating ADVENTURE!.

We left the appealing town of Settle on a steep climb up Constitution Hill, and were soon off-road. Near the top of the climb, it’s worth a tiny detour to visit Jubilee Cave. Some paths were muddy tracks (rain and a cycle rally had temporarily made this worse), but some were over lovely green sheep pasture. About a mile after the cave was a river that we had to jump, which I guess could be easier, or more difficult, depending on recent rainfall, but it was okay at the time. The views all around were fantastic!
The path between Gorbeck (where we left the Pennine Bridleway) and Streets (where we joined a quiet road) was not so nice, fairly boggy with an indistinct path. This section nearly lost the route a star! There was also another stream to jump.
The National Trust land around Malham Tarn was very well maintained and extremely pleasant. There was a picnic table overlooking the tarn where we ate our packed lunch, and at the back of the field centre there was a public toilet.
More grassy paths (obvious on the ground but not exactly matching the OS map) took us past a farm and on to an area of grassland surrounded by more limestone features. Eventually we found ourselves following Cowside Beck on the flank of a fantastic valley. The views all around were beautiful, including looking down to the river and over to the village of Arncliffe below us. We stopped here for a drink in the cosiest pub you can imagine! (Trivia fact: In the 1970s, the original exterior shots of the Emmerdale pub were filmed here.)
The last section was quite a climb up over the ridge and back down again into Kettlewell. There was some scrambling over rocks involved, where we needed 3 or 4 limbs! However, the views back down into Arncliffe then on to Kettlewell, and all around, were gorgeous, and well worth the climb.
The walk had its challenges, but was completely exhilarating.

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