After 6 days of solid walking over not so nice terrain perhaps it is time to change things around a little bit. Yes, from here, things are going to stay green and lush as promised in day 3, but the rocks are going to change. From today and for a few days you are going to be on Limestone country, as Malham marks such a change as you will find out in a little while.

From Malham the path takes a light climb up to Malham cove. The path that takes you from Malham starts out as a quiet minor road that follows the river Aire. Soon the route turns off on to a stony footpath as it takes you on a long windy path, with a slight incline   

The cove which on our rest day we had a look at is, 240 ft (73m) high and 900 ft (274m) in length and made out of Limestone rock almost in its entirety. To make the day's start more interesting you are not going to be walking along the bottom of the cove, you are going to be walking on top of the cove, for it's whole length. If you leave yourself plenty of time for today's walk, you can look in-between the cracks in the limestone, which can be as large as 4 metres deep, 0.5 metres wide and running for over 15 metres. Inside these cracks, there are plants of all different colours and sizes, along with some moss and grass.  Amazingly this is all caused by natural erosion  as it is all made from water reacting with the limestone. 

However to get to the top you have to climb a lot of man made steps, so things are not as easy as they may sound. When you leave the top of the cove, you leave the town behind, but you still have Malham Tarn to cross. Malham Tarn is a nature reserve, which has the largest ratio of lime to water, of any natural making, in Britain and is of international importance for nature conservation. However, nature doesn't have it all its own way here, as in the 19th century most of the animals and plants were planted by man 

From the nature reserve the Pennine way dips down into a dry valley. After walking though the valley and Tennant Gill farm land, the route gives you a change of terrain as you prepare to climb up one of the most boring climbs on the Pennine way, Fountain Fell. The strangely shaped footpath is in a small dip, which blocks out a lot of the best views. Because it is a long climb of several miles it seems to go on for ever, and does get rather annoying and boring after a while. With all this you would be looking forward to conquering the summit, and admire the view that you have been deprived of. For once this is not going to be the case, unless you take a detour. This is because the Pennine way doesn't go to the top. It stops a 1/4 of a mile from the summit. One thing that is good, though, is that it does make a hasty retreat with  a sharp descent into Dale Head, which is a small farm in a valley.

After Dale Head you have a beast of a climb ahead of you, so  the best thing that you can do here is have lunch on the grass verge, of the small path that lead you up to the summit, the summit of Pen-y-Gent. 

One of the most daunting climbs is now ahead of you now, that is on the Pennine way, clearly making up for Fountain Fell. If you want to help yourself a bit, and you are in very good time, you can take the path the left, and head to Horton-in-Ribblesdale that is just over mile away by this path. Go to your accommodation and drop your rucksacks off and return with out your rucksack to tackle this beast.

So after doing what you wanted to do, the climb, or should I say 'scramble' is here. The climb to start with is fine and rather gentle, until you reach a cluster of rocks and immediately the ascent rate is doubled, to almost a 1 in 2 ratio. Soon after that properly a ratio of 4 in 5 starts, that means for every 5 metres horizontal you go you do 4 metres vertical. Or put this way, if you had a compass, and put that beside this section it would read about 75 degrees. Bear in mind that 90 degrees is totally vertical and 0 degrees is perfectly horizontal. Soon you have no other option, over than to go on all fours and use most of your energy to scramble up a near on vertical rock face, which contains lots of loose stones. 

From the top a gently descending, but exposed path takes you the final 2 miles down into the village.

None on route. Cafe and hotel/ public house at Horton in Ribblesdale