Choosing Pushchair-Friendly Trails in the Dales

Start with the surface, not the view

The best pushchair-friendly trail in the Yorkshire Dales is rarely the one with the most dramatic photograph on the signboard. It is the one where the ground underfoot is firm, drained and reasonably smooth for the whole length of the walk. Get the surface right and almost everything else about the day — tired legs, low spirits, an abandoned buggy parked against a gate while you carry a toddler — usually sorts itself out.

In practice, that means looking for compacted gritstone tracks, old tarmac lanes, crushed limestone paths, canal towpaths and well-trodden grass in dry weather. It means being cautious about deep mud, loose shingle, soft sand, freshly ploughed field edges, and any path described cheerfully as "rough pasture". Grass is the great deceiver of the Dales: in late July a meadow beside the Wharfe is a joy under wheels, and in late February it is a bog with a view.

Wheel size matters more than most people expect. Pushchairs with larger pneumatic tyres roll over gravel, small roots and cobbles far more comfortably than those with small hard wheels, which tend to dig in and judder. If your buggy has a lockable front wheel, locking it forward helps on rough ground — it tracks straight rather than skittering sideways — but keep it unlocked for the flat, paved sections at the start and finish.

Gradients: how much is too much

The Dales are not flat, and the honest answer is that a gentle slope with a pushchair is a different proposition from the same slope on foot. As a rough guide for anyone pushing a laden buggy over a distance:

• Up to about 1 in 20: comfortable, barely noticeable, fine for an hour or more.
• Around 1 in 10: manageable in short bursts, but you will feel it in your arms and shoulders.
• 1 in 8 or steeper: hard work, especially uphill on gravel, and best avoided unless the section is very short.
• Anything steeper for any real distance: leave it for a carrier-and-backpack day.

Contour lines on a map give you this information before you set off, and they are worth a minute of your time. Lines close together mean a steep pull; lines spaced widely and following a valley floor usually mean a riverside path that behaves itself. Bear in mind that a route which is a gentle descent on the way out is a steady push on the way home, when everyone is tired and the snacks have run out.

Read the right of way, not just the name

In England and Wales the legal status of a path tells you a great deal. Bridleways and byways open to all traffic are generally wider, with gates rather than stiles, because they were designed for horses and carts. Public footpaths can be perfectly lovely, but they are the ones most likely to squeeze you through a gap in a dry stone wall or over a wooden stile.

Long-distance trails, former railway lines, reservoir circuits, forestry tracks and estate roads are usually the safest bets. In the Dales, the gentler riverside stretches around Malham, Grassington, Kettlewell, Reeth and Muker, together with the valley-floor lanes of Wensleydale and Swaledale, tend to reward a bit of forward planning. Further afield, canal towpaths, disused railway trails through the Peak District, and forest tracks in the Forest of Bowland all share the same virtue: a firm, predictable surface with space to pass.

Gates, stiles and squeeze gaps

This is where a promising walk falls apart, so check before you travel. A standard pushchair is often around 60 cm wide across the wheels, and a side-by-side double can be 75 cm or more. Many traditional squeeze stiles — the narrow gaps between two upright stones — are considerably narrower than that, and kissing gates vary enormously in width and in how tightly they swing.

Useful things to look for, either on a map, in a guidebook or by asking locally, include:

• Field gates and bridle gates rather than stiles, with a latch you can work one-handed.
• Wide kissing gates or gap-and-post arrangements that take a buggy without lifting.
• Radar-key or self-closing accessible gates on some managed trails and reservoir paths.
• Continuous sections without livestock barriers, so you are not constantly stopping, folding and wrestling.

If a route description mentions stiles at all, assume you will be lifting the buggy over them and plan accordingly.

Weather, season and what the ground does

Limestone country drains quickly and often dries within a day or two of rain, which makes paths around Malham and the southern Dales forgiving. Gritstone, peat and clay hold water far longer, so the higher moors and some of the wooded valleys stay claggy well into spring. A hard frost can actually improve things by stiffening mud into something you can roll across.

Late spring and early summer are the sweet spot: ground firm, vegetation not yet waist-high, and daylight generous enough that a slow pace does not matter. High summer brings bracken, nettles and busy car parks; autumn brings leaf-slick stone and shorter afternoons.

Before you set out, and what to take

Five minutes of checking saves an hour of misery. Confirm the surface type and gradient, look for stiles or narrow gates on the map, check that the route is a bridleway or better where possible, and have a shorter alternative in mind in case the ground is wetter than expected. Tell someone where you are going and when you expect to be back, particularly on the quieter dales paths where phone signal is patchy.

Pack for the pushchair as well as the passenger: a rain cover, a spare change of clothes, a small repair kit for a puncture, and a strap or lock so the buggy does not roll away on a slope while you are dealing with a gate. Take more water than you think you need, and be willing to turn round early. A short walk that ends happily beats a long one that ends in a carry.