The Twelve Apostles and Rombalds Moor Trig from the Cow and Calf

The route

From the Cow and Calf car park the route runs west along the moor edge below the crags, passing above White Wells at 1.6km. The old spa cottage and its stone plunge pool are worth two minutes if the flag is flying, which is the only reliable sign it is open. Beyond it the path turns south and starts climbing properly, taking most of the day's 266m over the next two and a half kilometres on a broad, stony moor track.

The trig

The trig pillar at 402m arrives at 4.3km. It stands on a prehistoric burial cairn and marks the highest point of the whole Rombalds Moor massif, which is worth knowing because at ground level the plateau reads as flat in every direction. On a clear day you get Wharfedale on one side and Airedale on the other. In cloud you get nothing, and this is where people get turned around.

The Twelve Apostles

A kilometre further on, at 5.5km, the route reaches the Twelve Apostles: twelve millstone grit stones in a ring about fifteen metres across, originally sixteen to twenty of them, now well eroded by four thousand years and a lot of feet. The Lanshaw Lad boundary stone sits right beside the line here. From the circle the route swings north and drops to Gill Head at the top of Backstone Beck, then follows the beck path back past Haystack Rock to the car park.

Which version to run

This is the compact one, and it is the one to pick if you want a moor run that fits in a lunch hour or a first run on Ilkley Moor that will not spit you out. If you want the longer circuit, with the Badger Stone, the Grubstones circle and a proper crossing of Burley Moor, take the 11.6km version from the same car park instead. Both share this climb and this trig; only this one gets you back inside the hour.