Dales Way
Eighty miles from Ilkley to Windermere, following the rivers Wharfe and Dee across the grain of the Dales
Indicative — sampled from open terrain data along the simplified route.
The Dales Way is often the walk people choose for their first long-distance route, and the reason is simple: it keeps to the valleys. From Ilkley it follows the River Wharfe upstream through Wharfedale, past Grassington and Kettlewell, on paths that rarely leave the water. Only in the middle does it climb, crossing the Pennine watershed near Cam Fell — the high point, at around 1,750 feet — before dropping to the River Dee and Dentdale and on through the Lune valley to finish at Bowness-on-Windermere. Eighty miles in all, usually walked in six days.
Underfoot it is gentle by the standards of northern England. There is a great deal of riverside, a good deal of farmland and drystone wall, and one real stretch of open moor in the middle where the weather matters. It is well waymarked and never far from a village, which makes it forgiving to plan.
Both ends are easy to reach by train — Ilkley has a direct line from Leeds and Bradford, and Windermere station is a short bus ride from Bowness — so it suits walkers travelling without a car. The route also passes Dent, England’s highest mainline station, giving a natural point to break the walk or join it for a section.
The Dales Way was devised in the late 1960s by members of the Ramblers, stitching together existing footpaths. It links two national parks, the Yorkshire Dales and the Lake District, and much of its appeal is in the steady change of scenery between them — limestone dale giving way to the softer country around Windermere.
