Arden Great Moor & the Cleveland Way

It feels like a long time since I’ve written a blog post about the North York Moors (probably because it has been quite a while). Living just outside the Dales means that it’s just too tempting to pop over to some of our favourite spots in Swaledale and Nidderdale, and it’s easy to forget there’s a whole other national park less than an hour’s drive from home. Every time we do manage to get across though we finish the walk and say ‘we should get over here more often’. We had a very pleasant walk up to Arden Great Moor last weekend – despite some rather wild and windy weather! – and I’ve added a return to the moors to my must-do list for later in the summer when the heather is out (if not sooner).

We set off on a rather overcast Sunday morning from the free parking area at Square Corner near Osmotherley, to follow a walk of around 10 miles based on this route from the OS maps app. The hike uses a mix of moorland tracks, field paths and woodland trails to circumnavigate Arden Great Moor, before climbing up to the moorland plateau for the return leg to the car.

Terrain wise, the paths were mostly dry (although grassy and narrow in places) with some uneven sections where you need to watch where you put your feet. More challenging is the undulating nature of the route, taking you quite literally up hill and down dale! There are a few steep sections but nothing longer than a few minutes, although there was one loose section I wouldn’t fancy descending if it had been wet recently.

Soon after climbing onto the moor, a good track leads you to the Cleveland Way. Running across the North York Moors for 109 miles between Helmsley and Filey, the Cleveland Way takes in some of the national park’s most spectacular scenery. Here you follow a well surfaced path almost all the way back to the car, with good views of the edge of the national park and north towards Teesside: just what you need to give yourself the energy to get back to the car.

There are some cracking views on this walk, especially once you get up on the moor (we even didn’t mind getting rained on a bit). Once we got to the Cleveland Way we did start to see a few more people, but for the majority of the walk, we hardly saw anyone. A good one for avoiding the crowds.

Dog friendly rating: 3/5. Leads need to be on for the majority of this walk (there’s plenty of sheep knocking around, as well as a few fields with cows in and protected ground nesting birds on the moor). There is a fair stretch through the woods where you can let your dog off the lead – although I can’t promise you a totally bird free experience as we came across a ‘confusion’ of guinea fowl (yes, I did just Google the name for a group of guinea fowl). It was quite a weird experience and I have to admit my first thought was that we’d found some wild emus roaming the North York Moors!

There’s no road walking, but there are a few stiles you may need to help your dog over if they’re too big to wiggle under gaps in the fence. On the plus side, the first half of the walk has a few streams where your dog can have a drink to cool off (sadly not deep enough for swimming), although there is no water once you get on to the moor.

If you’ve enjoyed reading this blog today, subscribe below for weekly walking updates: