GUIDE TO THE GREEN FIELD BECK
(Source to Beckermonds)
NAME OF RIVER: Green Field Beck.
WHERE IS IT?: Langstrothdale, North Yorkshire. This is one of two streams forming the River Wharfe, the other being Oughtershaw Beck.
PUT-INS/ TAKE-OUTS: Start as high as you can get (see below), probably around SD850800.Finish is at Beckermonds, where the two becks join. SD873803 (Yorkshire Dales tourist map). There's a footbridge and places to park.
APPROX LENGTH: 2.5 km.
TIME NEEDED: 30mins
ACCESS HASSLES: No access agreements.
WATER LEVEL INDICATORS: Only possible in big spate, levels above 1.25m on the Kettlewell gauge on the Wharfe have been adequate in the past, but very different volumes of water may be coming down the two tribs (and Cray Gill) which may make this an unreliable gauge.
GRADING: 3, one fall at 3+.
MAJOR HAZARDS/ FALLS: Fences.
GENERAL DESCRIPTION: 31st January 2004...Huge water this weekend, so we went to do the upper Wharfe and decided to drive through Beckermonds as high as we could to get onto what is called Green Fields Beck.
You go through a couple of gates and 2.5 Km up the road and there is a forestry track off to the right with enough space to park at least a couple of cars without upsetting anyone. The put on from there is across the fields where you can see a gate opening - no gate - onto the river. When we paddled the water was through this opening and we got on in the field.
There are a couple of fences to watch out for - the first of which is 20 yds from the get in, although you can limbo this if you choose, but beware there were places where other fences have been.
The trip to Beckermonds is basically just bouncy except for a couple of drops...the first catches you unaware and the second we portaged since it's a closed in stopper that looked a bit too retentive - easy to cover if you have more bottle that we had.
Other than that nothing of note and a good warm up for the Wharfe itself.
OTHER NOTES: Now carry on down the Wharfe, or do Oughtershaw Beck as well.
CONTRIBUTED BY: Tim Rex.
