A Long Weekend in the Yorkshire Dales: A Four-day Driving and Walking Notebook from Skipton to Reeth
The first cup of tea on a Dales weekend never tastes the way you think it will. We were sat in the bay window of a back-street café in Skipton on the Friday morning, watching the canal boats nudge through the lock at the foot of the High Street, and the tea — strong, properly hot, no froth — tasted like the start of a real holiday rather than a borrowed one. I had four days, a hire car, a pair of boots that had earned their creases, and a borrowed Ordnance Survey Landranger 98 in the door pocket. The plan was simple: a slow loop north through Malham, west across to Hawes, and east into Swaledale as far as Reeth, with two named walks and a verdict on three pubs at the end of it.
A four-day Yorkshire Dales long weekend works best as a slow Skipton-Malham-Hawes-Reeth loop, with two named walks (Malham Cove to Gordale Scar; Aysgarth Falls into the lower Wensleydale) and three pub stops worth the detour (the Lister Arms in Malham, the Crown at Hawes, the Charles Bathurst above Reeth). Drive the B-roads, not the A65. Book Hawes accommodation before you book anything else. Expect patchy mobile signal past Buckden: not absent, but honest.
Brown water rushes under a historic stone bridge in Hawes, UK, showcasing winter’s powerful flow.
Day one: Skipton, the canal, and the road up to Malham
Skipton is a market town that has worked out what it is. The castle anchors the top of the High Street, the canal anchors the bottom, and the Tuesday-and-Saturday market fills the space in between. We parked in the long-stay off Coach Street (£6 for the day, machine takes cards) and walked the canal towpath as far as Niffany Farm before doubling back for lunch.
Bizzie Lizzie’s at the bottom of Swadford Street still does the best fish and chips in the town, and you can take a paper-wrapped portion onto the towpath if the dining room is full. The verdict has not shifted in years: not subtle, excellent.
The drive up to Malham takes forty minutes if you behave on the single-track stretches and an hour if you stop for the views. The B6160 north from Rylstone is the better route; the wider road via Gargrave is faster but flatter. Malham village is a ribbon of stone cottages along Malham Beck. We checked into the Lister Arms, a Thwaites coaching inn rebuilt around its bones rather than knocked through, and dropped bags before walking the half-mile up to Janet’s Foss for the late afternoon light.
The waterfall sits inside a hanging wood of beech and hazel, with a tufa screen behind it that the limestone has been laying down for centuries. It is quieter at five than at noon. The pint of Wainwright’s back at the Lister Arms that evening was the right temperature, the kitchen sent out a lamb hotpot with a properly browned crust, and the bar conversation was a slow argument between two regulars about whether the curlews had come back early.
Day two: Malham Cove, Gordale Scar, and the long way to Hawes
The Cove-and-Scar circuit is the named walk every Dales editor expects, and it earns the slot. We left the Lister Arms at half past eight, walked the field path to the foot of Malham Cove (twenty minutes, signposted from the village green), and climbed the stepped path up the western flank to the limestone pavement at the top.
The pavement is what people come for. Two-hundred-and-fifty feet above the dry valley, the clints and grikes hold ferns and pockets of grass and the kind of view that explains why early geologists kept coming back to Malham. We tracked the dry valley east to Watlowes, dropped into Gordale Beck, and came out at the foot of Gordale Scar by mid-morning. The Scar itself is a slot canyon with two waterfalls; the lower one is a Grade-1 scramble if the rock is dry, and a sensible turn-back if it is not. We turned back. The walk down to Janet’s Foss and along to the village is a forty-minute closer, and the Lister Arms kitchen does a soup-and-sandwich lunch that absorbs a four-hour morning without theatre.
The drive to Hawes is the long-way-round through Settle, Ribblehead and the top of Wensleydale: an hour-and-twenty on the B6479 and B6255. The Ribblehead Viaduct is twenty-four arches, 440 yards long, and still the working main line between Settle and Carlisle. We stood at the southern end for ten minutes watching the freight, then drove on through Hawes for the night.
The Crown at Hawes is the older of the two coaching inns at the top of the town. The bedrooms are small but properly heated, the bar is dark in the right way, and the kitchen runs a short menu of Wensleydale-cheese-and-onion pie, gammon with a soft poached egg, and a sticky toffee pudding that holds its shape on the spoon. The room rate (£135 the Saturday we were there) is at the upper end of what the place delivers, but the bar and the kitchen earn most of the gap back.
Day three: Aysgarth Falls, Castle Bolton, and a market detour
The third day is the Wensleydale day. We drove east out of Hawes on the A684 (the only A-road on the loop) to Aysgarth, parked at the National Park visitor centre, and walked the three-tier falls circuit. The Upper, Middle and Lower Falls are spread across roughly a mile of the River Ure, with proper paths and decent signage. The Lower Falls do the wide-step thing the Dales are famous for, the water running across a limestone ledge in a kind of slow-motion sheet.
Castle Bolton sits four miles north of Aysgarth, on the moor edge above Redmire. It is the 14th-century fortress where Mary Queen of Scots was held for six months in 1568, and the south-facing terrace catches the afternoon sun in a way that makes the picnic tables sensible even in April. Entry was £14 on the day we visited; the printed guidebook is worth the extra £3 for the room-by-room context.
The drive into Reeth runs over the Buttertubs Pass: five miles of single-track climbing onto Lovely Seat moor, with the limestone potholes at the top, then dropping into Swaledale at Thwaite. Reeth wraps around a wide green at the bottom of the village. The Saturday market is small and proper, with two cheese stalls, a knife sharpener, and a baker out of Richmond who sells a sourdough that holds its crust on the drive home.
Day four: a closing walk and the slow road back
The fourth day is for the closing walk and the slow road south. We took the Reeth-to-Marrick-Priory loop in the morning (five miles on a good path, the ruined nuns’ steps as the named feature halfway round) and were back in the village for lunch at the Black Bull. The roast pork sandwich (£11) came with proper apple sauce and a crisp piece of crackling the size of a postcard. The verdict was easy.
The drive south runs through Leyburn and Masham and rejoins the A1 below Ripon. Masham earns the detour for the Theakston brewery tour (book ahead) or the bakery on the square if you do not. We were back in Leeds for evening kick-off, two bottles of Old Peculier on the passenger seat.
The pub verdicts and what to skip
The Lister Arms in Malham is the right base for night one: walking distance to the Cove circuit, a kitchen that earns its plate, a bar that does not feel staged. The Crown at Hawes is the right base for night two: the room rate is at the upper end of the market, the bar and kitchen are honest, the location at the head of Wensleydale opens the third day cleanly. The Charles Bathurst Inn above Reeth — sometimes shortened to the CB — is the upgrade option if budget and time allow a third night.
Skip the chain coaching inns on the A65 between Skipton and Settle. Competently run, entirely forgettable, and they will cost you the bar conversation that makes the Lister and the Crown worth the trip.
Staying online across the UK
The Dales are not a notspot. The signal is honest: strong in the market towns, patchy in the dale heads, and gone for a kilometre or two on the high moor passes. Skipton, Hawes, Leyburn, Masham and Reeth all have full 4G on the main UK networks. The B-roads through Wensleydale and Swaledale hold a usable signal most of the way. The single-track climbs (the Buttertubs Pass, the road up to Tan Hill, the stretch between Buckden and Hawes on Fleet Moss) drop off for short stretches and recover on the descent.
What works on the route
On the four-day loop, *EE* held the steadiest 4G across the dale-head villages, with *Vodafone UK* close behind on the B-roads and *O2* the more reliable of the remaining two in Hawes and Reeth. *Three UK* was the patchiest of the four on the high passes. The Ribblehead corridor has coverage from at least two networks at any point on the line; Fleet Moss between Hawes and Buckden has a half-mile stretch where everything drops together. On the trip I carried the eSIM I used on the Richard Jones plan tested earlier in the year, which routed through EE across Wensleydale and handed over cleanly to Vodafone UK on the Swaledale descent, which mattered on the Buttertubs climb because the navigation handover happened on the steeper hairpin where the GPS would otherwise have lagged.
| Region/Route | Local Carrier | Signal Quality | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Skipton and the A65 corridor | EE | Strong 4G in the town and along the canal | Vodafone UK close behind on the B6160 |
| Malham village and Cove circuit | Vodafone UK | Steady 4G in the village; thinner on the limestone pavement | Drops to edge-of-service in Watlowes |
| Hawes and the upper Wensleydale | EE | Strong 4G in the town; usable on the A684 east | O2 reliable second option in Hawes itself |
| Fleet Moss and Buttertubs Pass | EE | Patchy; half-mile dropout near the summit | Recovers on the Swaledale descent |
| Reeth, Castle Bolton and the lower Swaledale | Vodafone UK | Steady 4G on the green and the B6270 | EE close behind on Marrick Priory path |
When the offline maps earn their keep
For the two named walks (Malham Cove to Gordale Scar, and the Aysgarth Falls circuit) the OS Maps app cache is the sensible insurance rather than the network. Both routes are signposted on the ground, but the limestone pavement above Malham Cove and the woodland sections around Aysgarth shade the GPS enough that an offline base layer prevents the small doubts that turn into real time on the wrong line.
FAQ
How many days do you need for a Yorkshire Dales long weekend?
Four days is the comfortable shape. Three works if you cut Swaledale and stay on the Wensleydale-Malham loop. Two days will only let you do the Cove circuit and one pub stop, and you will spend more time driving than walking.
What is the best route through the Yorkshire Dales by car?
The Skipton-Malham-Hawes-Reeth loop on the B-roads (B6160 north from Rylstone, B6479 and B6255 across to Hawes, A684 east to Aysgarth, B6270 east into Reeth) gives you the named villages and the two best-known walks without the A65 traffic. Reverse it on the return.
Which Yorkshire Dales walks are good for beginners?
The Aysgarth Falls three-tier circuit (about a mile, broad paths, well signposted) is the easiest. The Malham Cove field path to the foot of the cliff is the next step up. The full Cove-Gordale-Janet’s Foss circuit is moderate and takes four hours at a relaxed pace.
Where should I stay in the Yorkshire Dales for a four-day trip?
The Lister Arms in Malham for night one, the Crown at Hawes for nights two and three, and a short drive back to Skipton or Ilkley for the final night if you are not driving straight home. Avoid the A65 chain coaching inns.
Is there phone signal in the Yorkshire Dales?
Yes in the market towns and on the B-roads; patchy on the high passes (Fleet Moss, the Buttertubs, the road up to Tan Hill) and edge-of-service on the limestone pavement above Malham Cove. EE and Vodafone UK hold up best across the loop; cache an offline OS map for the two named walks.
The closing verdict
The Yorkshire Dales reward the slow shape of a long weekend rather than a single-day raid out of Leeds or York. The market towns earn their reputation, the named walks earn theirs, the B-roads through Wensleydale and Swaledale are the proper way through. The Lister Arms and the Crown both delivered on the parts a coaching inn is meant to deliver (bar, bed, breakfast) and undersold the gap a chain would have filled with marketing. The only honest downside is the weather: April gave us a clean second day, a wet third morning, a closing day of mixed cloud. Pack a proper jacket, book Hawes first, let the road do the rest.
