Helpful Information and Safety Tips

For Walking with Kids

Are you planning on hiking with the kids? Taking a walk somewhere in the Dales?

Then this is the must read page for all your outdoors desires! If you have a question, here you’ll find a link to somewhere with an answer! You’ll find some of our top tips for hiking mountains, being outdoors and generally helping you find the right answer to help keep you safe.

Some of our favourites resources are found right here!

But here are my bottom lines….

Leave only footprints, and take away only memories. (Or photos. If you, like me have 40,000 pictures on their phone…..)

Our next bottom line (for apparently, two bottoms is better than one - tell that one to the kids….!)

You can always turn around! Whatever hill you are climbing, woodland you are exploring or waterfall you are chasing, it’ll be there another time. If the terrain, conditions or weather aren’t playing ball, come back another day!

Be Adventure Smart (stole that one from Mountain Rescue!) but be prepared and be prepared for everything. Ask yourself where you have the requisite knowledge, experience, strength and skills to be able to tackle the challenge? If the answer is no, then try an easier option. The same applies if you realise this half way through a walk! You can always turn around and go back the way you came.

Walking along a flagged path in the cloud

Tip Top Links!

We are not experts. Actually, I’m not an expert in anything other than snack deployment! So here are a few experts who can help far better than I can! Please take some time to familiarise yourself with what they are saying…

Mountain Rescue

Be Adventure Smart is their motto and they have an excellently accessible page full of safety tips on how to be as safe as you can enjoying the outdoors. It’s also worth familiarising yourself with what you should do in the event an accident occurs.

Head to the Mountain Rescue Safety page to check that out.

Map Reading and Navigation Skills

On our walks I have drafted up some helpful route guides to aid you in your navigation, but this is NOT a replacement for a map and compass. ALWAYS take a map, compass and ideally a GPS with you at all times as routes can change, be diverted or aren’t as easy to navigate using words as they are using a map! Plus visibility can change extremely quickly up on the hills and moors.

If you aren’t familiar with how to read a map, Ordnance Survey have a great easy guide to get you stated. You can find their basic navigation skills page here.

Safety links for swims can be found lower down the page.

Standing on a trig point in the sunshine

Non Negotiable Stuff

As a lover of the Yorkshire Dales National Park and as an advocate of enjoying it’s mountains, it’s outdoor spaces, it’s waterfalls and it’s beauty, we have a duty to look after this place.

And that my friends is Non Negotiable Stuff.

If you brought it? You can take it home. Contrary to popular belief, there are no magic elves that pick up after you (although if you are after magic elves, check out our Yorkshire Dales Folklore blog!)

Leave the BBQs for your back garden. Nope. The National Park does not allow BBQs in the wild (different rules apply to private campsites) and as somebody who witnessed the devastation a smouldering BBQ has on moorland (Google Ilkley Moor fire 2019) then it’s not worth the risk to the countryside, the wildlife or you.

If there are signs to protect wildlife? Listen to them. The Yorkshire Dales National Park is home to a huge range of species including animals, insects and plant life, including being the proud host of some really rather rare habitats. If there are signs? Respect them.

Make a place better. If you spot rubbish, pick it up. It really helps. I’ve gone from picking up ice lolly wrappers and cans to taking full bin bags of rubbish or even entire BBQs home with me to dispose. I guess the good guys are those magic elves I mentioned in the first paragraph!

Would you like to learn a little more about the Countryside Code and how we can respect, look after and enjoy our countryside? Then check out the Countryside Code.

Heading Up a Peak?

Planning to take a trip up one of the Yorkshire Dales moors and mountains? Then be prepared! They are temperamental beasts that offer wonderful rewards but are prepared to bite!

Yes, the Yorkshire Dales has ‘mountains’. But they are different from the mountains you have in your mind. These mountains are a particular beast that need to be treated with as much respect as any hill or stereotypical mountain terrain. If the cloud comes down, in remote moorland, you can be faced with miles of virtually featureless navigation. So….

Our tips.

Always take a map and compass. And know how to use them. My next tip is to get a GPS app or tool, but technology fails and paper doesn’t (unless it rains so much it disintegrates. In which case invest in a waterproof map, or a case!) I’ve definitely fallen into the trap of not practicing the compass skills enough and so they get rusty, or disappear altogether. So practice in good weather, on familiar terrain. Then if you ever need to call on them in an emergency? You have them right there in the back pocket.

Not gonna lie… love Steve Backshall and he has some ace beginners navigation videos over on the Ordnance Survey Website. So I thoroughly recommend you head down that rabbit hole and get those skills learned and practiced.

I’ve used Ordnance Survey maps all my life and would recommend them!

If you aren’t confident with using a map, take a navigation skills course! There are so many to choose from! Having grown up with maps and how to use them, I haven’t ever taken a skills course, but why not check out The Yorkshire Dales Guides (who have been recommended before to me) and Team Walking (who look great!) To be honest even with skills, it’s always an idea to polish them so they shine!

Get a GPS backup. Because it is a backup. Technology has a habit of failing on you, whether it be a drained battery, or being too cold and just dying right there and then! So if you are serious on heading out onto the hills, then my first point….. well. That.

But, GPS is expensive. And if you aren’t going to be navigating multi day routes in extremely remote places… spending £600 on a GPS navigation system is probably going to be a no, no for you!

We recommend the OS Maps App. You pay a subscription to get the 1:25000 Explorer map (it’s the most detailed) but it’s worth it. The only heads up is that if you try and load the start of a walk in zero internet, it will not load properly (at least on my phone) and…… that’s when point 1 comes into play! I find if you load up the intended route before you reach your remote location, it’ll still be ok for tracking purpose.

Be prepared to turn around and go back.

There is no shame in calling it a day if either the terrain, weather or conditions aren’t playing ball. I have had to give up on numerous occasions for flooded paths, bogs, pea-soup visibility or the blummin’ wind. It isn’t worth the risk and safety is priority.

Sitting on a trig point on Whernside in snow

Let’s Talk Weather

Did I mention hills are like toddlers?

One minute they are absolutely tickety boo….. the next? Raging like you’ve cut their toast in the wrong shape! Weather can change super quickly and so to deal with that you need to be prepared. First call?

Check the mountain forecast for hills. Check the actual forecast for lowlands.

I have been obsessed with weather for …. ooh 20 years?! I find the Met Office to be the best shout for lowland weather, and for mountains check out MWIS (although let’s face it, neither is infallible)

Caught out by the weather?

These are not failsafe options and you have to assess the conditions, terrain and weather as it comes. So always have a get out, a short cut or a turn back and go the way you came option.

The hills will be there another day and a great explorer knows when to say, that’s enough.

Rain. OH Rain. Between 2023 and the end of winter 2024, there has been an unprecedented amount of the stuff (in fact the Environment Agency have published a report on its effects as it has been the highest rainfall since records began!) All that rain? Well, it has had a profound effect on the terrain! Be aware that prolonged rain can affect the footpaths, cause flooding to previously accessible routes, create impassable bogs or excessive mud. Assess the conditions as you go, they are constantly evolving and changing!

And oh…. remember that bottom line? Well I’m going to say it again! You can ALWAYS TURN BACK!

Swimming in the Dales

There are so many beautiful places to dip your toes or even swim in the Yorkshire Dales but did you know…

Cross Contamination is causing a threat to native species in the waterways of the Yorkshire Dales?

And beyond.

This just means one simple thing. Properly clean and dry ALL of your equipment before you move to a different watercourse. The potential effect of not doing this? Completely decimating a native species. It’s a REAL problem with such a little effort on the human side. So have a think.

Water Safety

I am not an expert in water safety, but there are people who are. So take heed of the information from the Royal Life Saving Society and Wild Swimming Society to help. Water does not mess around.

I have written an entire blog about how to swim with kids safely. There are plenty of safety links and some expert advice (not from me I might add) over there, so tap the link to our Wild Swimming with Kids blog to find out more!

Ooh final reminder…. take your stuff home. Remember that bit from the start?

And if you can, leave your beautiful swim spot in a better condition than when you found it. So if you find somebody else’s discarded rubbish (or bra… true story) then carefully bag it up and take it to the nearest bin!

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