Waterfall Bonanza

Last weekend we were washed out again on the rivers with storm Miguel hitting the Dales and precipitating so much the rivers were up over 1.5m.

Not one for staying in I opted to head further up the Dales with camera in hand and one thing that would look good would be the waterfalls.

A quick map recce found that there were a large amount of waterfalls located around the village of Keld high up in Swaledale, so setting off at 0630hrs I headed off with camera & walking boots.

The views up in swaledale are worldwide renowned for the amount of stone barns that the dale has.

Just a small sample of the barns from the roadside and every barn has a story to it which is kept alive by the local tourist information's which I find fascinating how they used to live when life was so much less complicated than today.







Parking the car and paying my £2 in an honesty box for all day safe parking I slipped on my walking boots, rucksack over my shoulder and off I headed on my pre planned route, the first waterfall being Kisdon Force.

( Taking lots of photographs, I will keep the shots on here to single ones of the entire falls )

Just as I had expected in full force and moving some amount of water through it per second.












Photographs done, kit packed away I headed back along the Pennine way for my next port of call, another waterfall called East Gill, not as large as it was located on one of the feeder burns supplying the main river but just as pretty.

At this point I still had not seen a single soul, I had all this to myself without any other person bothering me.

Onward & upwards now to a place I have been meaning to visit for many years as the panoramic views are spectacular as I have seen many photographs from others and always vowed I would get up there one day myself, and I wasnt disappointed.

The view on the way up was quite spectacular in itself, I simply cant comprehend how these folk built these stone farms & mile upon mile of dry stone walls all those years ago, what a hard and simple life it must have been.

The walk up was well worth the wait as Im sure you will agree.

Crackpot hall looking down Swaledale with the river Swale down below.  With the clouds & light changing constantly I sat there for over an hour absorbing the different moods that mother nature was throwing at me.

It was still onward & upwards to Swinner Gill an old lead mine high above here for my next waterfall.

The views behind me as I climbed higher just as spectacular.

The Swinner Gill waterfall being in 2 parts, the upper part.

And the bottom part.

Im always amazed at how hard our predecessors worked to make ends meat and this far up an old lead mine workings, how hard must it have been up here in all weathers scraping out a meagre living, lead was first extracted up here in the 1740s, and between 1751 - 1756, 370 tonnes had been removed by hand and processed, & our generation think we have it hard! 

The view up to the mine

The buildings around the mine site.

Leaving the hills I descended back down towards the Swale and the numerous waterfalls in the area.

Currack Force

Wain Wath

Rainby Force

Hoggarth's Leap

And finally the smallest of them all but nevertheless just as pretty.

It might not have the thrills of catching a wild trout or grayling on fly but it gave me just as much thrills and spills in the magnificent views, and the short final walk back to the car for a sit down and a chill before the drive home was just as good as the rest of the day.