Gordale Scar and Malham Cove

I spent a few days in Lancashire with family last weekend and enjoyed two walks which happily coincided with some glorious - and most un-winter-like weather!

Last Friday we did a 6 mile walk to Malham Cove. It was shorter than I'd hoped but I didn't plan the route and I was walking with people older than me and not quite as active as they once were. Though short, it was still a nice walk. I did a similar, but longer version of this walk in 2011 and had only been thinking about it earlier in the week - thinking it was time I walked here again, so I was pleased when F suggested it when I arrived on Thursday evening!

We started close to Janet's Foss waterfall near the village of Malham.

We were heading for Gordale Scar, a large and impressive limestone gorge.

To continue the path, you have to climb up the waterfall in the centre of the next photo.

This waterfall is only perhaps 10 or 12 feet high though and there are plenty of footholds in the limestone so it's a very easy and quick climb (right up the middle between the two steams of water, so you don't get wet either!).

The orange-ish coloured rock is a pile of recently broken tufa, we assumed from frost shattering. You can see the boulder it was in this photo from 2011...

2011

Views from the waterfall

At the top...

There's another waterfall once you reach the top of the first, but this path goes past this one, no need to climb it!

Another look back...

Time to head onward - and upward.

I love the limestone scenery here. Interesting geology too :)

It's a rocky path towards the top of Malham Cove .... I love these kinds of paths :)

In typical fashion for me, I navigated the rocky bits of this walk like a mountain goat, no trouble at all, yet managed to fall over walking across flat, plain grass!

The wall you can see in the centre of the next photo was, between around 1100 and 1535, a boundary marker between the Bolton Abbey estate land in the east (left of the wall as seen here) and Fountains Abbey to the west (right of the wall here).   Our path is heading down there...

and the wall led us to the top of Malham Cove. It was very cold here in the shade. We all wished we had gloves at this point, a chilly wind, frost in places. It was a good 10 degrees warmer in the sunshine and for most of the walk, we didn't even need jackets. Very strange in February.

There were fine views, as ever, from the top of Malham Cove.

Including the pair of peregrines that nest on the cliff.

Usually, when I've walked Malham Cove, I walk either up or down the many steps and walk alongside the water in the next photo.

But today, to shorten the route a bit, we took a path I'd never walked before, cutting a corner back towards Janet's Foss and avoiding the steps and Malham itself.

A view back towards the cove...

Lovely limestone landscapes.

In the photo below, you can clearly see the difference between two geological landscapes, with limestone on the left, sitting a little higher on top of the Askrigg block, and then gritstone to the right. We were given geology lessons throughout this walk, which I did enjoy, but unfortunately, most of it was in one ear and out of the other, I couldn't retain what I'd been told; not because it didn't interest me,  but because I'm a visual learner, so I need to see it to stand a chance of remembering it.

After completing this walk, we called at the Hoffman Lime Kiln before heading home for the evening.

It's an interesting structure, I've never seen a lime kiln like this before. (You can enlarge these photos to see the text more clearly if you wish to).

A very pleasant walk, around six miles in total, and such a beautiful, spring like day :)