Читать книгу The Dales Way. From Ilkley to the Lake District through the Yorkshire Dales онлайн

7 страница из 47

The Dales Way is a monument to cooperation between the Countryside Commission and the West Riding group of the Ramblers’ Association (RA). With commendable vision, it was this arm of the RA that in the late 1960s foresaw the unquestionable appeal of a fine line through the valleys of the Dales and across the watershed of Britain into Cumbria, finally dropping to an abrupt end on the shores of the country’s largest lake. By pressing on to Windermere, the originators of the Way effectively and most attractively linked two of the country’s major national parks, the Lake District and the Yorkshire Dales – in fact, very little of the Dales Way is not in one national park or the other.

The nature of the countryside through which the Dales Way passes is such that this is a far less demanding walk than other middle- and long-distance paths, and for that reason alone it is suited to walkers wanting either to complete the walk in sections, returning weekend after weekend until the whole route is covered, or those who want to experience multiple-day walking for the first time. That is not to say that the Dales Way is any kind of soft option: adverse weather while crossing between Oughtershaw and Dentdale, for example, would test the most experienced walkers, and there are many sections where the conditions underfoot are potentially treacherous. But you are seldom far from help or shelter, while the discomforts and privations generally associated with long backpacking trips are unlikely to prove a burden for long.