The Yorkshire Dales

Designated in 1954, the Yorkshire Dales National Park is built almost entirely from carboniferous limestone laid down roughly 350 million years ago, which is why the landscape here reads so differently from the Peak District's gritstone — pale scars and pavements instead of dark edges, cave systems instead of surface boulders, and river valleys ("dales") named individually: Wharfedale, Wensleydale, Swaledale, Ribblesdale. Below are the places, and the one big challenge walk, that define a visit.