GUIDE TO HARDEN BECK
NAME OF RIVER: Harden Beck
WHERE IS IT?: Situated between the villages of Cullingworth and Harden.
PUT-INS/ TAKE-OUTS: Approach: we parked at the top of Hallas Lane in Cullingworth (SE076366) and walked down from there, there is a footpath that runs next to the river on river right, its also possible to approach from Harden.Put in/take out: its possible to put on basically anywhere from the bridge at the bottom of Hallas lane onwards, we took off at the broken wall just after the bridge after entering the caravan site (SE079373).
APPROX LENGTH: 1km.
TIME NEEDED: 30mins plus inspection time.
ACCESS HASSLES: Unknown.
WATER LEVEL INDICATORS: Needs to be high! The higher the better really, when we ran it it had rained all night and most of the morning and the big drop was just high enough to run, it's easy enough to walk down to the top Goit Stock fall and you will know if its high enough, if its not high enough for that the rest of the river won't be worth running.
GRADING: Mostly continuous grade 2/3 with one big 5 metre drop.
MAJOR HAZARDS/ FALLS: Goit Stock waterfall and there's also a few tree hazards if you run the entire beck.
GENERAL DESCRIPTION: The beck starts off with a fairly easy grade 2/3 ledge drop into a nice pool where it is advisable to get out and inspect the next and biggest drop.
The next drop is Goit Stock waterfall its possible to inspect it from both sides of the river and from below it, we set up safety at the bottom of the drop on river left this might not be possible in high water. The line we ran was down the obvious spout on river left. I boofed and landed flat and it hurt my back a bit, this probably wouldn't be a problem in higher water. Marco went deep and didn't touch any rocks probably the best approach.
The rest of the river is about half a mile of fairly easy tight and twisty grade 2 with a few notable slot drops there was a few trees down across the river and not too many eddies so its important to keep an eye out. Get out on river right next to the broken wall in the caravan site, this could be difficult in higher water.
OTHER NOTES:
CONTRIBUTED BY: Tom hustler, Marco Altibrandi.
