Ingleton's Waterfalls
4 .5 miles. 3 - 4 hours. Moderate walk with slippery areas when wet. There is one climb of 500 feet.

From the New Inn take the A65 to Ingleton. In the centre of Ingleton, go past the church turn right to the car park.

This is one of the most beautiful walks in the Yorkshire Dales. For most of the way, the footpath is privately owned which means that there is a small admission fee.
The outward section of the walk follows a wide footpath alongside the River Twiss upstream through the tree lines Swilla Glen. Its waterfalls tend to be wider than the Doe's and are best seen face on. Those of the Doe are mostly in tree-lined narrow ravines, which are more dramatic when viewed from above. Both rivers join a few yards below the road which leads into the car park to become the Greta, itself a tributary of the Lune, one of the Dale's two rivers flowing into the Irish Sea.

Pecca Fall is a series of narrow cascades - where you can stand and feel the spray on your face. There is usually a little hut open on the nearby hillside, where refreshments are on sale. This is a good place for a breather and there are superb views. Don#t forget your camera!

Thornton Force is the next waterfall and the highest at 46 feet (14 m) in the Ingleton area and one of the most scenic with water tumbling over rocks - it is quite dramatic. The tree fringed limestone crag makes a natural amphitheatre. The darker rock beneath the falls is slate which, unlike limestone, is impervious to water.

Much of the geology of the Ingleton area is revealed by the river#s flow. Around the car park the underlying rock is mostly shale and slate, which accounts for the comparatively flat land to the west. Harder slates form the river-bed upstream for most of the way and the more easily eroded limestones have been worn into glens and gorges where natural amphitheatres are slowly being cut back under the force of their waterfalls.

From Thornton Force follow the path crossing the footbridge and climb towards the open field. Turn right along a narrow farm lane to Twistleton Hall. Follow the signposted footpath away from the farm, going over the Chapel-le-Dale road. Breezley Falls is the first cascade of the otherwise peaceful River Doe. The river's other name is Greta, a title which is retained by the main river below Ingleton. Outcrops and boulders in the river bed cause the stream to make several dramatic changes of direction.

Go past Breezley Farm and then follow a signposted footpath to the right, into a narrowing valley. Snow falls is one of a series of three in the section of the valley known as Twistleton Glen.

From Snow falls follow the footpath past the quarry, which once exploited the harder but more easily worked slate which forms the bed-rock of this normally limestone region.

From the quarry you will join an improving track which will take you towards Cat Leap Fall and the car park in Ingleston. This is a little off the route, on the left and is the final exuberant act of Skirwith Beck, a side stream which joins the Doe close by an old limestone quarry.

Spring is the best time to appreciate the walk, when the water levels of both rivers are still fairly high and the delicate green of newly leafed trees form a mystical backdrop, but don't screen the views of the deeper ravines.