A landscape raw and wild': by train to the heart of the Yorkshire Three Peaks

Limestone stretches across the landscape, formed from ancient coral, shells, and sea creature skeletons. Walkers move carefully over clints and avoid grykes, using the terrain’s drainage on warm, dry days. The surface can appear broad and flat until it suddenly collapses at the edge of a huge fault. The Yorkshire Dales setting feels raw and wild, prompting geological speculation and reflective thinking. The group is small, with few people visible across distant horizons. The journey begins with a spring yomp using a direct train connecting Rochdale and Manchester to the national park and Yorkshire’s Three Peaks. The route is less frequent than the well-known Leeds–Settle–Carlisle service. The walk starts at Horton-in-Ribblesdale, near Ribblehead and the Three Peaks area, with Pen-y-ghent left behind as the route continues.

"Limestone stretches on all sides like an inland ocean appropriately enough, since the shimmering white rock has its ancient origins in coral, shells and the skeletons of sea creatures. We advance carefully, stepping on clints (blocks of rock) and avoiding grykes (the deep fissures between them). It's a warm, dry day and, even if it were not, limestone drains better than most types of terrain. For a long while, it's broad, flat and hallucinatory and then, suddenly, the rocky sea collapses like a waterfall and we're at the edge of a huge fault."

"The words Yorkshire Dales might evoke pretty villages and walled-in sheep fields, but this landscape is raw and wild, the kind of natural realm WH Auden celebrated in his poem In Praise of Limestone, and the kind that prompts geological speculation and inward ruminations. To cap it all, there are just three of us and nothing much and no one else all the way to the far horizons. It's my first decent yomp of the spring."

"I've come here with two walking pals on the egregiously under-promoted direct train that connects Rochdale and Manchester with the national park and Yorkshire's Three Peaks. While the Leeds-Settle-Carlisle service which recently celebrated its 150th birthday is deservedly famous, the Yorkshire Dales Explorer, which started in June 2024, is much less celebrated. It's also far less frequent. Trains travel between Leeds and Settle, continuing to Carlisle or Morecambe, 20 times a day Monday to Saturday, 11 times on Sundays."

"Trains between Manchester Victoria and Settle run on Saturdays only and just once in the morning each way and once in the late afternoon. We alight at Horton-in-Ribblesdale, the penultimate station before the terminus at Ribblehead, where rises the magnificent viaduct. Both stops are great for walkers, but ours takes us immediately into the heart of the Three Peaks. Pen-y-ghent is behind us as we leave the statio"

Read at www.theguardian.com