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Field barn above the River Swale below Ivelet Side (Walk 21)

Some of the most spectacular scenery of the national park is to be found in the areas dominated by the Great Scar Limestone – Malham Cove, Gordale, Kingsdale, Twisleton, Lower Ribblesdale and the middle reaches of Wharfedale. Towering lines of white cliffs and scars, shake holes, sinks, potholes, caves, disappearing and resurgent streams and rivers, dry valleys and waterfalls, clints and grikes, are all features of this remarkable karst landscape. Overlooking the fault lines, the cliffs result from the upward movement of the Askrigg Block, but the terraces along the valley side are due to the relative resistance of different layers to erosive weathering. A similar picture is seen further north in the Yoredale Series, where the successive bands of limestone are comparatively harder than the intervening strata of sandstones, producing the stepped profile that is so characteristic of Wharfedale and Swaledale. It is this same process that gives rise to the many spectacular waterfalls of the region, the water cascading over a lip of hard limestone, but undercutting into the softer rock that lies below.