6: HIGHER THAN NIAGARA

MALHAM COVE

It’s hard to imagine, but the sweeping, 91.5m (300ft)-high limestone amphitheatre of Malham Cove in the Yorkshire Dales, bypassed by head-down Pennine Wayfarers, was once the site of a waterfall higher than Niagara.

At the end of the last Ice Age, torrents of freezing meltwater came crashing down the now-dry Watlowes valley above the Cove, tumbling over its lip and creating the verdant dale below. In times of heavy and prolonged rainfall, it still sometimes happens today.

Ice Age meltwater was also the architect of nearby Gordale Scar, thought to be the remains of a vast cavern whose roof has collapsed. The gurgling little Gordale Beck that leaps from the rock at the head of the gorge was the innocent cause of the catastrophe.

ABOVE A wide and towering curve of limestone, Malham Cove was once home to an immense waterfall