August is my absolute favourite month of the year. The weather’s good, the days are long and best of all, the heather blooms. There’s nothing I love more than a gorgeous carpet of purple heather sweeping across a moor. It arrived early in the Dales this year, with flowers starting to appear from the middle of July, and by the second weekend of August I was ready to get out heather hunting.
Being where we are in the north of North Yorkshire, we’re spoiled for choice when it comes to moorland walks. The Yorkshire Dales, North York Moors and North Pennines are all in easy reach, and they all offer plenty of walks with chances to see the heather in bloom. Initially we’d intended to drive over to Levisham to walk around the Hole of Horcum: unfortunately though the day dawned so overcast and windy that we decided to scrap that plan in favour of a route closer to home. There’s no sense in driving a long way if the weather isn’t on your side.
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Decision made, we headed into Swaledale for a shorter walk from our Pocket Mountains guide to the Dales. Starting in the pretty village of Langthwaite (where I’m always charmed by the chickens roaming the car park), we followed the river to climb up through Slei Gill onto Booze Moor.
It was very, very windy for a summer’s day, with gusts of up to 45 miles per hour. Happily, the riverside section was sheltered enough that we didn’t get more than a mild breeze until we started to climb up onto the moor – if only it had lasted! The riverside section here is one of my favourite paths: it’s really pretty and very easy walking. Plus, there’s a couple of pubs in Langthwaite which would be the perfect addition to any walk down here.
Down by the river I was actually quite warm and questioning my decision to wear my waterproof jacket, especially as we climbed out of the trees and found the wind to be quite warm. Slei Gill is typical of many parts of Arkengarthdale, with the landscape being very much shaped by mining: look out for spoil heaps and the odd culvert. There were good views on this part of the walk across to Fremington Edge, although the increasingly gloomy weather did put a bit of a damper on the scenery.
The guide book we were using was published in 2016, three years before Swaledale experienced devastating floods. While visitors today wouldn’t realise the extent of the damage, in addition to the many buildings which flooded and roads which partially collapsed, many paths were completely washed away. Such is the case along this route, where the original path referred to in the guidebook has been replaced by a new public right of way.
The new footpath (complete with 5 foot high bracken, although mercifully the path was at least clear from the knees down) brought us out further along the route, where you cross the beck by an old culvert. After such a dry spring and summer there wasn’t actually any beck to cross, with just a dry riverbed waiting for us. This was a shame as I’d been looking forwards to letting the dogs have a paddle – despite the wind it was still quite warm.
Having scrambled up the bank beyond the culvert as instructed, we were confronted with a swampy, grassy patch as promised by the guide. What was less clear was which way to go! We set out on a grassy path, doubted ourselves, traipsed about in the heather to our right for a bit looking for the right way, to eventually decide we were probably going the right way in the first place. The shooting hut you’re told to aim for isn’t immediately visible, but we got there in the end!
This was probably the low point of the walk for me: the wind was howling, it started raining (thankfully only a quick shower) and worst of all, I had a wet foot after the dog had parked himself where my foot was going to land as I jumped across the swampy bog, causing me to divert my landing into a very wet squishy bit to avoid squashing him. And he thanked me by scoffing a sheep’s tail five minutes later…
After passing the shooting hut, the path becomes a much better, well surfaced level track. The book route follows this all the way to join the bridleway on the other side of the moor, but be aware that this isn’t public footpath all the way and walkers with dogs will need to stick to the right of way rather than the track, as dogs are banned up here unless you’re on a public right of way.
Whether you take the track or the footpath, it’s about a kilometre to then join the bridleway which runs along the edge of Booze Moor. I’ve been up here a few times before and usually in August it’s absolutely breath taking, but unfortunately today the heather just wasn’t popping, with the grey sky not showing it at its best.
There are views across Arkengarthdale and Low Moor, which were still pretty despite being shrouded in a veil of drizzle. Plus, I perked up considerably once I realised there was no more up hill – there’s a deceptive amount of elevation to get onto Booze Moor. We soon reached the tiny hamlet of Booze, where we followed the road back down to Langthwaite. The road here is so steep that Royal Mail wouldn’t deliver to the houses up here, with residents instead having to collect their post from Richmond, until the Council made improvements to the road.
Dog friendly rating: 2.5/5. The riverside section is the only part of this walk where you can safely let your dog off-lead, although the river isn’t accessible, being down a bit of a drop. After leaving the river you can expect to find sheep and grouse throughout this walk, and you’ll need to amend the route slightly to make sure you stick to public rights of way. There’s one stile as you climb up through Slei Gill, which has a dog gate to avoid the need to lift your dog over the stile. Normally there’d be a few opportunities for dogs to have a drink from becks along the way, but when we did this walk these had all dried up, so be prepared to carry extra water for your dog. Look out for the chickens in the car park in Langthwaite!
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