Stainforth

Our plan for the day was to complete a walk I had downloaded from the Ordnance Survey website, which ran from the car park at Stainforth, up the hill to Catrigg Force then south towards Langcliffe, returning along the western bank of the River Ribble, via Stainforth Force.

When we left Fufu, the weather was quite chilly, so we had taken warm clothing, but quickly found these to be too warm for comfort and we ended up carrying them.

The path to Catrigg Force is very steep throughout the almost one-mile climb from the village, but it is beautiful countryside and stopping to get my breath back presented frequent opportunities to admire the view and take photographs.

Catrigg Force is quite a high waterfall but due to the recent lack of rainfall, it was just a shadow of its usual self.  The last time I was there, anyone daring to step into the stream at the base of the waterfall would have been carried away, but today a child could have paddled across safely.  Nevertheless, it is pretty, and the light was good for photography.

From there, the path south took us higher still and across some amazing countryside. 

On our way down the steep slope into Langcliffe, we encountered four mountain bikers who were riding state of the art e-bikes up the hill towards us.  The path was so steep that they would have had to carry/push their bikes up and being e-bikes, they would be quite heavy.  In addition, there were several difficult stiles and gates to encounter.  One of their group had already just fallen-off, so when they asked if the path ahead would likely be ok for them, we advised against going further.  They did in fact carry on and were apparently successful as we encountered them again when we reached Stainforth Force, but they admitted they had struggled.

The trip mostly centred around the River Ribble (today more of a “dribble”) alongside which, the Settle to Carlisle main railway line runs.  Unfortunately, I managed to miss both of the Steam Specials which ran through when we had no real view of the railway line.  I must try and check on the times of these if we return to this area.

Stainforth Force is just downstream from an old and narrow pack-horse bridge which sits at the bottom of Dog Hill Brow, another steep climb back to the main road and our starting point.

Fufu is sited for the night at a really nice site, Lodge Farm where we spent a relaxing early evening enjoying the sunshine.