Pint at the End: The Yorkshire Dales Walks Worth Every Blister

There's a very particular kind of happiness that comes from finishing a hard walk and pushing open a pub door to find a fire lit and a pint pump waiting. The Yorkshire Dales does this better than anywhere else in Britain, and we've spent the summer testing every combination we could find.

The rules were simple: the walk had to be at least six miles, involve a proper hill, and end within staggering distance of a pub that takes its beer seriously. Some contenders were eliminated purely on the grounds of serving a limp ploughman's. This is a serious business.

"You can't rush a Dales walk and you shouldn't rush the pint at the end either," says Ted Airey, landlord of a fifteenth-century inn near Kettlewell who has watched three generations of ramblers come through his door. "Half the fun is comparing notes with strangers about which field had the angriest cows."

Top of our list is Malham Cove to Malham Tarn, a seven-mile loop that takes in the limestone pavement above the Cove — yes, the one from the Harry Potter films — before climbing gently to the tarn and dropping back down through Malham village. Finish at the Buck Inn, where the Yorkshire puddings alone justify the walk.

Second is the Kettlewell to Arncliffe circuit via Old Cote Moor, a proper leg-burner of a climb rewarded by wide views across Littondale. "That top section catches the wind something rotten," warns Ted, "so don't be fooled by a sunny start in the village. Take a proper coat even in August."

Third, and perhaps the prettiest, is the walk up to Hardraw Force from Hawes, England's highest single-drop waterfall accessible via the garden of the Green Dragon Inn. It's a short walk in Dales terms, barely three miles round trip, but locals extend it by continuing up onto Great Shunner Fell for a full day out.

"Hardraw's a cheat's walk if you only do the waterfall bit," laughs Marjorie Iveson, a walking guide based in Hawes who leads groups up onto the fell tops most weekends. "But it's the perfect one for families, and you still get a pub with a waterfall in the back garden, which is not nothing."