Buckden Pike and Great Whernside

Monday 13th September 2004

On the third day of my walking holiday in the Yorkshire Dales in 2004 I headed into the picturesque valley of Wharfedale eventually stopping in the village of Kettlewell. After parking up I got kitted up and started walking back up the valley that I had just driven down following the path that keeps to the western bank of the River Wharfe. I returned to Kettlewell ten years later, partly in the hope of capturing some pictures to illustrate this blog entry, when I eventually made it. Unfortunately the weather was so poor I was unable to repeat the walk shown here or, more tragically, take a picture to illustrate it. The weather on my original walk was much better with sunshine following me as I made my way up the valley past Starbotton and into the village of Buckden. At this point I crossed the valley and took to a bridlepath that slants up the side of the valley passing through Rakes Wood slowly climbing the broad slopes of Buckden Pike. This walk was a long time ago and I have nothing to aid my memory so it is difficult for me to remember any details about it at this point.

I think I encountered some bad weather while driving over Kidstones Bank from Wensleydale, but I don’t remember the weather being too bad at this point though there might have been some lingering clouds hanging over the pass. The thing I do remember about the top of Buckden Pike is the extensive bogs that covered much of the hill. After passing the trig point at the summit I headed south and I remember at one point taking a very wide detour around a vast bog that stretched out from the wall that traverses the flat top of Buckden Pike. After a prolonged and tricky trek along the top I eventually reached the southern end of the summit plateau at the curiously named Top Mere Top. Here a bridlepath heads off the hill taking a route on the ancient Starbotton Cam Road and down a clear track called the Top Mere Road that leads all the way into Kettlewell. When I was approaching Kettlewell in 2014 Top Mere Road could clearly be seen above Kettlewell with Buckden Pike itself behind.

However, I did not take this route down in 2004 but turned left at Top Mere Top to follow a path that comes down to the top of a pass that could be named Hunters and links Kettlewell with Coverdale. After crossing the road I made my way along the path that climbs the slopes of Black Dike to reach the top of my second Whernside in as many days. Despite being smaller in height this one is much wider and has a smaller top nearby called Little Whernside with the higher top called Great Whernside. The weather turned vicious during my climb up the slopes of Black Dike and I remember being assailed by hail driven by strong winds that forced me to seek whatever shelter I could find on this exposed hillside by crouching down as low as I could get. Thankfully the hail didn’t last long and I was able to resume my trek up Black Dike to the summit rocks of Great Whernside. The rocks that litter the summit of this hill make this a much more appealing summit than its namesake in the Three Peaks and it makes me regret never returning to this hill in the fourteen years since this walk.

At the trig point that marks the summit I turned right onto a path that heads down the hill leading all the way into Kettlewell with good views up and down the valley of Wharfedale during the ascent. I remember the village being decorated with something unusual though I couldn’t remember what until I did a check online and found mention of the Kettlewell Scarecrow Festival. This has been going on since the nineties and is held in August so a month later I may have seen some of the smaller examples that had survived. This walk has been greatly diminished by the passing years so without any photographs to reawaken my memory it has almost faded into obscurity, though a couple of memories have survived: the bogs on Buckden Pike and the hail on Great Whernside. It is tragic that this walk has not been better remembered and even more that these impressive hills have not been paid the honour of a return visit. That is surely an oversight that must be corrected as soon as possible.