With the fantastic sunny spring we’ve had so far set to falter this week, we chose a longish walk last weekend to soak up every last drop of sunshine we could. After all, you never know when the sunny weather might disappear for good! Following a lovely mooch up Buckden Pike back in March, we headed back to Wharfedale to bag another of the Wharfedale The Peaks. This time we headed up Great Whernside, the only one of the Wharfedale Three Peaks I hadn’t been up before.
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As with last week’s walk at Gunnerside Gill, this was a route from our Day Walks in the Yorkshire Dales guide. This handy pocket sized book has a fantastic collection of walks ranging from half to full day routes, with a particular range of choice in the south and east of the national park. We parked in the large pay & display car park in Kettlewell, which was already starting to fill up at 9am, and set off in anticipation of a beautiful sunny day.
It’s a short walk through the village before picking up a track which climbs uphill, sometimes steeply, but never too prolonged without easing up a bit. There are good views down over Kettlewell and across to Great Whernside, with almost the whole route visible in front of you as you crest the first uphill section. It was a little daunting to look ahead at, but it wasn’t as bad as I thought it might be!
Much of the rest of the ascent follows a similar pattern, climbing steadily, then easing off enough that you never really feel truly out of breath. We had lovely views courtesy of the blue skies, and saw surprisingly few people until we began our final ascent of Great Whernside. Here, we did start to see the odd few people, but it still wasn’t anywhere near as busy as walks like the Yorkshire Three Peaks or Helvellyn.
The climb steepens as you near the top of the hill, but this is over relatively quickly and the good views remain should you wish to stop and admire them for a minute or two. I was extremely grateful for the nice cool breeze which picked up as we gain elevation: it would have been a rather sweaty slog otherwise. Usually there is no bog-free approach to this hill, but mercifully the dry weather we’ve been having recently meant that the boggy sections were nice and dry. Hurrah!
At the top, the climb eases off and it’s a gradual mooch over to the trig point. You can just about make out the tops of the Yorkshire Three Peaks in the distance – at least, you can if you get a nice clear day like we did. After admiring the trig we began our descent back to Kettlewell, although the book did offer a longer route which continued on down the ridge a bit further: we just didn’t have time to do the full thing sadly.
There were plenty more people about on this section, whether because it was later on or because this is the main path up I’m not sure, but they were mostly walking up as we were going down. This was the only part of the walk where the path properly disappeared (having until this point been fairly obvious or evident from worn grass), with a vast swathe of bog (dry on this occasion) making it impossible to follow a particular track. We very nearly went wrong here, but luckily the route is marked with wooden stakes painted a nice eye catching yellow at the top, so we just about managed to pull it back before we went wrong.
About halfway down the track steepens briefly and requires care where you’re putting your feet, but this is over and done with in less than 30 metres, and is nothing compared to plenty of hikes in the Lakes. Shortly after passing through the hostel at Hag Dyke the views get even better, with Kettlewell coming into view not long after. One final steeper section brings you out in the village, where it’s a short walk back to the car: we couldn’t resist stopping for an ice cream at the kiosk on the way back. We felt like we’d earned it!
Dog friendly rating: 2.5/5. As with most walks in the Dales, dogs should be on leads throughout this walk, due to the presence of both sheep and ground nesting birds (you may also encounter cattle, though we didn’t see any). We carried extra water for the dogs as the route was completely dry, with just one stream crossing at the very end of the walk. It’s nearly stile free, with just one (relatively low) stile to cross. Be aware that Great Whernside and the surrounding areas are subject to a dog ban on the access land, so you must keep to the public footpaths if you do this route with your dog.
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