Читать книгу Walking in the Yorkshire Dales: South and West. Wharfedale, Littondale, Malhamdale, Dentdale and Ribblesdale онлайн

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Ancient trackways and paths ignore these geographical divisions and connect this dale to that or lead up to small mines and quarries that were often as integral to a farming income as the cows’ milk and ewes’ wool. Although the contours of the land mean that summits are rarely visible from the valley floor and vice-versa, for much of the way in between, the wider views encompass them both. And it is from this perspective that the two really do come together to be appreciated as a single entity – The Yorkshire Dales.

Set between the Stainmoor and Aire gaps north and south, the Lune Valley in the west and running out onto the great expanse of the Yorkshire Vale to the east, the Dales cover a relatively compact area of upland plateau fragmented by a number of main valley systems. The tumbling rivers of the Swale, Ure, Nidd, Wharfe and Aire all unite in the River Ouse, which, meeting the Trent, becomes the Humber as it runs into the North Sea. The Ribble, together with those streams gathered by the peripheral Lune, find their freedom to the west in the Irish Sea, while Mallerstang alone drains northward along the Eden Valley to Carlisle and the Solway Firth. Feeding them is a multitude of lesser rivers that gnaw deep into the heartland, creating a maze of smaller valleys and dales each proclaiming its own subtly different character. This variance is rooted in underlying geology, positional geography and the product of elemental forces, but important too is the way man has settled and exploited them over millennia. Farming, husbandry, woodland management, quarrying and mining have all left their mark upon the slopes; and, here at least, it can be said that the accumulative effort of successive generations has unconsciously helped in the creation of one of the loveliest landscapes in the country.