Gordale Scar: don't drop those quickdraws

Did you know that a careless footstep can destroy 500 years’ growth for some lichen?

Or that parts of the Yorkshire Dales are an important area for the study of hippopotamus, hyena and lions? Both climbers and walkers will benefit from reading a new Green Climbing Guide to the Yorkshire Dales, produced by the British Mountaineering Council and conservation bodies.

Victoria Cave near Langcliffe has internationally important fossilised remains of the animals more commonly associated with Africa. Not that surprising really, as the whole of the Dales’ landscape was put down 300 million years ago when the area was near the equator.

As for the delicate lichens, we should all avoid walking on these elder inhabitants of the limestone uplands, whose existence began when Henry VII was starting the Tudor dynasty and da Vinci was painting the Mona Lisa.

The guide, available as a download from the BMC website as well as a leaflet at the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority’s centres, has 13 points to observe if you want your outdoor pursuits have minimum impact. They range from the obvious, such as climbers not dropping rocks and gear on to the heads of tourists in Gordale Scar, to the less evident, such as placing your rucksack on rocks when you stop rather than on vegetation, which will suffer damage, particularly in popular areas.

And don’t even think about leaving banana skins about. Apart from the obvious risk of fellow outdoors lovers coming a joke cropper as they slip on the skins, discarded fruit and skins tempt valley predators into upland karst terrain and alter the balance of the habitat.

The guide also has information on bird species at risk and plants which are easily damaged, either by climbers clearing routes or setting up belays or by heavily shod large groups of walkers.

Most of the climbing crags in the Dales are Sites of Special Scientific Interest and are at risk from the popularity from climbing and walking. The BMC guide, produced with input from the Dales authority, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and Natural England, aims to help us all minimise that.

And if you find any hippos or lions lurking in the Dales’ caves, best leave them alone.