Highest mountains in the Yorkshire Dales

Highest mountains in the Yorkshire Dales

The highest mountains in the Yorkshire Dales are home to some of England's most beautiful and wild landscapes, all perfect for hiking

The Yorkshire Dales National Park covers 2,179 km2 of countryside and offers some of the best outdoor scenery in England. The park's glacial valleys are defined by a unique terrain of high heath moorland, rolling hills and dramatic waterfalls, all interspersed with miles of dry stone walls and delightful villages.

The park attracts over 3.5 million visitors each year who want to explore the landscape on foot, by bike or kayak - just a few of the options. The park is also home to some of the highest mountains in England: 41 to be exact. These offer a variety of challenges for hill walkers and offer some of the best views in the Yorkshire Dales.

We take a look at the highest mountains in the Yorkshire Dales - 41 good reasons to go hiking in England.

When does a hill become a mountain?

In Britain, 610 m (2,000 ft) is generally accepted as a benchmark for elevating a hill into the high echelons of a mountain. Until recently the Yorkshire Dales was home to 40 such landforms.

old=““>Geographer/Karl and AliThe summit of Calf Top

In 2016, Calf Top, a relatively unremarkable hill in the northern Dales, was recategorised as a mountain. In 2010, Ordnance Survey measured the hill at 609.579 m (1999.9 ft), slightly below the threshold required to be a mountain.

However, in 2016, improvements in the Ordnance Survey's method of calculating elevation showed Calf Top's summit to be 2000.02 feet (609.606 m), slightly above the threshold. Calf Top became England's newest mountain and the 41st mountain of the Yorkshire Dales National Park.

The Dales 30

In the UK, as elsewhere in the world, there are different methods of categorizing a mountain. The elevation, prominence and isolation of a peak all come into play. There are numerous lists available: Marilyns, Munros, Majors and Nuttalls to name a few.

old=““>Atlas & BootsAt the summit of Ingleborough, one of the highest mountains in the Yorkshire Dales

When we first moved to the Dales we attended an evening at the Richmond Walking & Book Festival where local walking guide Jonathan Smith from Where2walk spoke about his book The Dales 30.

The Dales 30 are the 30 peaks in the Yorkshire Dales over 610 m (2,000 ft) that have a drop (prominence) of at least 30 m (98.4 ft) on all sides - another popular mountain classification method known as Hewitts (hills in England, Wales and Ireland over two thousand feet).

Jonathan has written a detailed travel guide to Dales 30, filled with recommended routes, maps, facts and anecdotes. I started by hiking Great Shunner Fell, my first Dales 30 and the third highest on the list. Fast forward a few months and I have now checked 18 mountains off the list.

Highest mountains in the Yorkshire Dales

The map below shows the 41 mountains in the Yorkshire Dales in blue and the 30 Dales mountains in red. Use the sidebar to hide or show each list.

The table lists the 41 mountains in the Yorkshire Dales National Park in order of height.

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Main image: Pete Stuart, Shutterstock

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