Mud-splattered boots, elegy inducing fells - and a pickled brussels sprout. Could there be a better way to kick start spring? The local snack, a distinctive blend of the devil's vegetable and cloudy vinegar - and speciality of Arncliffe's Falcon Inn - might not be to everyone's taste, but few areas offer a more invigorating blend of landscape, history, culture and locally sourced cooking than the Yorkshire Dales - and the best way to enjoy all four is a good walk.
You won't be the first. And that's a good thing. Iron age Brits, Romans, Vikings and medieval traders have kindly left a network of trails between different communities. More recently, they've been researched, walked and served up in perfect pub-to-pub sized chunks - 12 to 14 miles is a reasonable distance for our newly lengthened days - by award-winning hiking guide and author of the Inn Way series, Mark Reid.
"It's slow-cooked travel," he says, supping a pint on the eve of departure. "People moved around like this for centuries, a gentle pace with a day between dales, where each was a different world. It's multisensory: you feel the wind, hear the birds and discover the layers of history. Savour the walk. I don't ever want to hear, 'Are we there yet?'"
Reid isn't alone in his enthusiasm; it's contagious. Bass, Squids and Krusty are three Canadian brothers who present a series of epic journeys on National Geographic TV. They might be more Pepsi Max triathletes than cagoule-clad ramblers, but they're convinced this slice of Yorkshire is spot-on for the new season.
Day one of Reid's glorious five-day, 61-mile circular route, which takes in nine dales and 18 pubs, will be an early test. We stride out from the freshly revamped rooms at Kettlewell's Racehorses Hotel. Centuries ago it stabled the muscular steeds that dragged stagecoaches up a murderously steep local pass. I can empathise. It's like starting a Stairmaster session on gradient 10.
Our climb exposes the curved barrel of Wharfedale, where dry stone walls rise like the wooden ribs of an ancient shipwreck. After a blustery march over high springy moorland, the clouds fragment and Cecil B DeMille takes over the choreography. Biblical spotlights of sun rake Littondale, illuminating Arncliffe between wooded slopes and a meandering cobalt river. If they ever bottle the essence of soft rural England, this should be on the label.
As should the village's Falcon Inn. It has a coal fire, a fading photo of a champion marrow from 1900, and Timothy Taylor ale served in ceramic jugs from wooden barrels. It's wonderful, but Squids looks alarmed. Days before he was catching the perfect wave off Nicaragua, now he's facing the far scarier ordeal of a pickled sprout. "Well, gentlemen," says landlord Robin Miller. "You've had your greens."
But not our walk. We crack on along Littondale, arriving as the Queen's Arms closes for the afternoon, before climbing 607m to cross Old Cote Moor and Birks Fell. Straight ahead, in early evening light, is Buckden village, described by Alfred Wainwright as "perched on a hillside like a Tibetan monastery". Either he'd never seen the Himalayas or he'd over-imbibed on the Buck Inn's Golden Pippin Ale.
I wouldn't blame him. It's lovely. And sets us up for a monster pie supper at the nearby Cray's White Lion Inn. The pub's Ring The Bull challenge hints at rodeo-style adrenaline, but whereas medieval competitors tossed hoops over a decapitated bull's horns, you now swing a ring on a string over a hook. Dominos is more physically demanding.
We compensate the next morning. A steady climb, and we're tackling the Roman road towards Stake Moss: a truly wild corner of the dales. As ghostly figures of mist and peat hags rise around us, the skies darken. "Locals call it lazy wind," says Reid. "It can't be arsed to go around you so it cuts straight through."
But scenery and history can distract you from the grimmest weather. We're passing Raydale's high fells, once owned by monks, now by farmers diversifying to survive. Derek Kettlewell holds bespoke tastings of preserves and pickles cooked on-site at School House Farm. Chilli-stuffed Hellish Relish ignites the gums, but the Extra Hot is seismic: my left contact lens appears to melt.
It's safer outside. Derek offers occasional herding demonstrations with sheepdog Dylan. "Never work with children or animals," he says, as we trek through stone-walled pastures. "And get a quad bike instead." He's being modest. Dylan's a blur of fur, cajoling the herd into a tight swarm. When we try it's a pantomime of waving arms, frantic shouts and stampeding Swaledale sheep. The flock scatters into two fields, while Dylan appears traumatised.
Our work here is done. We trek along England's shortest river, the two-and-a-half-mile Bain, passing fences hung with eerie strings of dead moles - evidence of mole catchers, not satanists - before reaching Wensleydale for a pint at Worton's Victoria Arms. The classic front-room pub, run by landlord Ralph Daykin since 1956, serves Black Sheep Riggwelter Ale next to the rear end of a stuffed fox, pimped with a water pump. At judicious moments, it lifts its tail and "pees" on surprised customers.
Our 13-mile day ends in the White Rose and the King's Arms in photogenic Askrigg. The iron rings among its cobbles are a legacy of Elizabethan days when tethered bulls were taunted by snarling dogs for public entertainment - early inspiration for Endemol.
The next day's walk is less brutal. Slightly. It starts with a killer climb on to Askrigg Common. "Dude," gasps Krusty. "I'm spanked." And not just by the hills. After passing the vertiginous limestone crag of Oxnop Scar above Swaledale, he has a navigational disagreement with Bass. The ensuing punch-up, caught on camera - "we tell it as it is" - leaves his brother with fractured ribs. It's shaping up to be compulsive viewing.
An hour later all is forgiven. We're on the Corpse Way, a 12-mile funereal route first used by local Vikings to mirror the mythological journey to the afterlife - although it ends not in Valhalla, but Grinton. Just over Ivelet Bridge is a coffin-shaped stone, where pallbearers rested bodies. It's a divine final journey. Ochre hills are bathed in soft sun and steep banks drop to a river so languorously curling that it hisses rather than flows. I'd far rather this than a hearse to the local crematorium.
It's accompanied by an apparently bottomless keg of history, including Gunnerside's 200-year-old smithy, run by the sixth successive generation of the Calvert family. After pumping its ageing bellows to stoke the fire, we examine old lead mining equipment straight out of Wallace & Gromit - sumpters, kibbles and clevis prickers - in the petite museum.
But, hell, it's more than 12 hours since the last pint. Time for Gunnerside's King's Head. Recently rescued just days before closure, the pub serves local brews alongside Glenn Miller 78s on a wind-up gramophone. As so often on the hike, it merits a lingering lunch. But there's 11km left, passing the hamlets of Crackpot and Low Row, where corpse carriers once stored stiffs in the Dead House - it's still there - while drowning their sorrows in the Punchbowl Inn.
We prefer Reeth's Georgian pubs and The Bridge in Grinton, home to the route's best food, including a wickedly tasty pork belly and an ale called Dirty Tackle. Meanwhile the Canadian dudes invade Friday night bell-ringing practice. "Hey, none of you guys looks like Quasimodo," is an opening gambit rarely heard at Grinton parish church.
Morning four eases the impact of yet another fried breakfast with a three-dale hike. A three-mile tramp past old mine workings into Apedale reveals views more Texas widescreen than Yorkshire, before crying curlews and lapwings announce our rapid entry into Wensleydale.
Today's lunch promises to be a bit special. Bolton Castle, built between 1378 and 1399 by Richard Le Scrope - wasn't he in Blackadder? - looks exactly like a castle should: thumping thick walls and dungeons where excavators found a skeletal manacled arm.
Our guide, Tom Orde-Powlett, Lord Bolton's son, serves up excellent local pies, pâtés and cheeses before revealing a vineyard courtesy of dad - "it produces about three bottles a year" - and an electric portcullis courtesy of Cate Blanchett: the castle was a location in Elizabeth.
It isn't Wensleydale's only movie link. In nearby Carperby, the Wheatsheaf Hotel's guest book includes one visitor whose address was simply "Hollywood". It leaps out among the Bradfords, and Northallertons. And so does the guest: Greta Garbo. The actress, entertaining troops in 1942, waxed lyrical about the Wheatsheaf's black pudding.
Only joking. Perhaps it's the anticipation that my next fried pig's blood is just 14 hours away. For now I amble into Bishopsdale to sample the sporting zeitgeist on West Burton's village green. Quoits, where you lob 5lb disks over a metal pole surrounded by gloopy clay, is enjoying a renaissance.
"It's booming," explains quarryman Phil Davidson, heaving his quoit from the sticky pit. "Our league had four more teams last year, and two this. The world championships in Arkengarthdale get about 100 people - mostly from Yorkshire."
I'd like to report that I hike the final day's 14 miles. I'd like to, but I'd be lying. After a roast lunch at the isolated Thwaite Arms in Horsehouse, where the decor seems little changed since the second world war, we blag a lift off a friendly farmer, cutting out a five-mile grind to the wind-hammered head of Coverdale. It leaves a gentle trudge and climatic views from Great Hunters Sleets, before a downhill stroll to Kettlewell for a final celebratory lamb shank - my third of the walk - at the Blue Bell. Our hiking circle is complete.
My pedometer - sad, I know - shows I've walked 122,029 steps, while consuming roughly 15,000 calories, washed down with 23 pints. I've gained a spare tyre of historical knowledge, but lost a pound in weight. More importantly, I've had a cheek-tingling, hair-mangling, head-clearing hit of fresh air. I don't want to be premature or provoke Yorkshire's fickle weather gods, but it feels as if spring has finally arrived. Hallelujah.
Way to go
Getting there
London King's Cross to Skipton from £27 return with National Express
East Coast (0845 722 5333, nationalexpresseastcoast.com). Buses run from Skipton to Kettlewell.
Where to stay
Mark Reid (innway.co.uk) tailormakes walks, or you can follow the suggested routes in his books. Racehorses Hotel, Kettlewell (01756 760233, racehorseshotel.co.uk), White Lion, Cray (01756 760262, whitelioncray.com), White Rose, Askrigg (01969 650515, thewhiterosehotelaskrigg.co.uk), Fox and Hounds, West Burton (01969 663111, www.fhinn.co.uk). All offer B&B doubles from £70. Arkleside Hotel, Reeth (01748 884200, arklesidehotel.co.uk) offers B&B doubles from £75.
Further reading
The Inn Way ... To The Yorkshire Dales, by Mark Reid (InnWay, £9.95).
More information
Eager Brothers' travel documentary whichwayto.tv
