Short Walks in the Yorkshire Dales: Grassington, Skipton, Malham and Ilkley

Rachel Crolla is an outdoors all-rounder who loves hiking, biking, scrambling and climbing. She grew up in Yorkshire, where she still lives with her partner Carl McKeating and their young family. Rachel is an outdoors writer and photographer who is also trained as a journalist and teacher. She has hiked and climbed across the UK, Europe and the USA. In 2007 Rachel became the first woman to reach the summit of every country in Europe – she co-wrote the Cicerone guide book Europe’s High Points soon afterwards. Rachel has since co-written a guide to the mountains of the Massif Central in France and more recently has enjoyed writing about areas in the UK. She and Carl fully updated the Cicerone guide book Scrambles in Snowdonia , which was originally written by Steve Ashton in 1980. Rachel’s first cycling guide to the Yorkshire and Lancashire-based Way of the Roses was published in 2018. Rachel and Carl are passionate about enthusing the next generation of hikers and cyclists with a love of the outdoors. Carl McKeating is from Yorkshire. He is the co-author with Rachel Crolla of the books Europe’s High Points and Walking in the Auvergne published by Cicerone. Carl has also worked on the Yorkshire Gritstone: Volume 2 climbing guide for the YMC (2014) and is the co-updater with Rachel Crolla of Steve Ashton’s classic Scrambles in Snowdonia (Cicerone, 2017). A rock climbing and mountaineering enthusiast, in addition to ascending all of Europe’s national high points, in 2010 he completed a long-standing ambition to climb all the routes in Ken Wilson’s Classic Rock which he followed with a three month climbing and mountaineering tour of America. Inspired by Rachel Crolla’s work on a guide to the Way of the Roses cycling route, Carl has recently rediscovered his love of cycling. He loves playing football and guitar – both of which he does badly. A qualified English teacher, in 2014 Carl started work on a doctorate about Mont Blanc in British Culture. Carl and Rachel are passionate about enthusing the next generation of hikers and cyclists with a love of the outdoors.