Buttertubs Pass is the road that makes the Yorkshire Dales worth a trip: roughly 5.5 miles (9 km) of open moorland climbing to a 526 m (1,726 ft) summit between Hawes in Wensleydale and Thwaite and Muker in Swaledale, past the limestone potholes that give it its name. Around it sits a national park of walled fields, single-track lanes and the highest inn in the British Isles, the Tan Hill Inn at 1,732 ft (528 m). Nothing here closes for a season, but almost everything here is narrow, and if you are visiting from abroad the two things that will catch you out are riding on the left and reading every speed limit in miles per hour.
What the Dales are like to ride
The Yorkshire Dales are a set of parallel valleys running roughly east from the Pennine watershed, and the riding follows that geometry. The dale roads themselves — the B6270 up Swaledale, the A684 through Wensleydale, the roads up Wharfedale and Ribblesdale — are flowing, walled, and slow enough that you can look at the scenery. Connecting them means crossing a high moor, and those crossings are where the good riding is: Buttertubs, Fleet Moss, the road over to Tan Hill, the Kingsdale and Coal Road lanes.
The character is entirely different from the Lake District an hour to the west. There is no drama of steep rock faces or 30 per cent hairpins here; there is scale, emptiness and drystone walls. It suits touring pace and it punishes rushing, because a wall does not have a verge behind it and Dales sheep have no fear of vehicles.
Top roads at a glance
| Road | Summit or length | Character | Start and end |
|---|---|---|---|
| Buttertubs Pass | Summit at 526 m (1,726 ft), about 5.5 miles (9 km) | Open moorland crossing, cattle grids, unfenced road, steep pitches | Simonstone near Hawes to Thwaite and Muker |
| B6270 up Swaledale | The length of the dale | Narrow walled dale road through Reeth, Gunnerside, Muker and Keld | Richmond to Keld and the Kirkby Stephen road |
| Fleet Moss | Summit at 589 m (1,932 ft) | Highest road in the Dales, single track with passing places, severe gradients | Hawes to Oughtershaw and Wharfedale |
| Tan Hill road | Tan Hill Inn at 1,732 ft (528 m) | Bleak open moor, no walls, the highest inn in the British Isles at the top | Keld or Arkengarthdale up to Tan Hill |
| A684 through Wensleydale | Main east-west route | Wider and faster, market towns, the practical spine of a Dales trip | Bedale to Sedbergh via Leyburn and Hawes |
Open the Buttertubs crossing in Google Maps — Hawes over the pass and down into Swaledale at Muker, ready to send to your navigation.
Buttertubs Pass
The road runs north from Simonstone near Hawes towards Thwaite and Muker, and near the summit it passes the Buttertubs themselves — limestone potholes about 20 m (66 ft) deep in the ground beside the road. The name is said to come from farmers on the way to market lowering their butter into the shafts in hot weather to keep it cool. There is a small pull-in and a short walk to look down them, and it is worth the stop because from the road they are easy to miss.
As riding, the pass is straightforward in the sense that the road is two-way and reasonably surfaced, and demanding in every other sense. It is unfenced across the top, which means sheep are on the tarmac and you cross cattle grids at speed if you are not paying attention. The gradients are stiff enough that it was the highest of three categorised climbs on stage one of the 2014 Tour de France, when Jens Voigt led over the top on the way to the first polka dot jersey of that race. It was due to feature in the elite road race of the 2019 UCI Road World Championships before heavy rain forced a reroute — a reasonable summary of the weather here.
The pass has had a long run of television attention, from Clarkson's Car Years to repeated Top Gear appearances, which is exactly why it is busy on summer weekends. Ride it at eight in the morning and you may have it to yourself.
Swaledale and the road to Tan Hill
Coming off the pass into Swaledale you join the B6270, which follows the valley through Muker, Gunnerside and Reeth. This is the classic Dales road: narrow, walled, running past field barns and the remains of lead mining, with the river alongside. It is not a road for speed. It is a road for the twenty miles where you stop trying to make progress and simply ride.
From Keld or from Arkengarthdale a moorland road climbs to the Tan Hill Inn, at 1,732 ft (528 m) the highest inn in the British Isles — slightly higher, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, than the Cat and Fiddle Inn in the Peak District. The building dates to the seventeenth century and served the coal pits that used to surround it; the last mine closed in 1929 and the pub survived on farmers and, later, motor traffic. It is genuinely isolated, which produces the stories the place is known for: guests snowed in for three days over New Year 2009, again during Storm Arwen in November 2021, and six staff and 23 guests rescued after a five-day stay in January 2025. In summer it is simply a good place to stop with a view of nothing at all.
Riding rules that catch out visitors
Keep left. The UK rides on the left. The two moments that catch visitors are pulling out of a car park or fuel station, and entering a roundabout, which turns clockwise and gives way to traffic from the right. In the Dales there is a third: emerging from a single-track lane onto a wider road after twenty minutes of riding down the middle.
Everything is in mph. Speed limit signs, distance signs and your speedometer if you hired the bike here. The national speed limit for a motorcycle is 60 mph on a single carriageway and 70 mph on a dual carriageway, but no road in this article allows either. Villages are 30 mph or 20 mph, and the Dales villages are policed for it.
Passing places are etiquette, not decoration. Most of the interesting lanes here — Fleet Moss, Kingsdale, the Coal Road, the lanes over to Askrigg — are single track with marked passing places. The rules are simple and locals notice when you break them. Pull into a passing place to let oncoming traffic through; if the passing place is on the other side of the road, stop opposite it and let the other vehicle use it. If someone has been behind you for a while, pull in and wave them past rather than making them wait. Never park in a passing place, not even briefly for a photograph, because farm vehicles and delivery vans depend on them. Reverse if you are the one closer to a gap. And treat a tractor as having priority in practice regardless of what the rulebook says.
Sheep, cattle grids and gates. The high roads are unfenced. Sheep lie on the warm tarmac and stand up without looking. Cattle grids are slippery when wet and worse when leaning. If you open a gate on a minor road, close it.
Fuel is thin. Hawes, Reeth, Leyburn, Settle and Sedbergh have fuel. Between them, in the upper dales, there is nothing, and several rural stations close early and on Sundays. Fill up in the market towns.
Season and weather
The Dales are rideable all year and nothing has a seasonal closure, but the moorland crossings — Buttertubs, Fleet Moss, the Tan Hill road — close for snow in winter and are the first roads in the area to do so. April to October is the practical window, with May, June and September giving the best combination of daylight, weather and quiet roads. Rain and low cloud are possible in any month, and the top of Buttertubs can be inside cloud while Hawes is in sunshine. Local authorities publish winter road status, and the Dales weather forecast is worth checking the morning you ride rather than the night before.
Gear notes for the Dales
The Dales-specific problem is that mobile coverage in the upper dales is patchy to absent, and a route that depends on a live connection will stop updating somewhere around Keld. Store the area on the device before you leave — our offline navigation guide covers doing that properly, and the argument against relying on a handset in a cradle is set out in our notes on phone navigation risks on a motorcycle. A riding system display stays readable in the fine Pennine rain that renders a phone screen useless, and riders touring on the JADO S6 get the map, tyre pressures and dash cam footage together, which is worth having on walled lanes where a blind bend and an oncoming van is a routine event. Cold, wet mornings at 500 m move tyre pressures more than a short ride suggests — the mechanism is in our cold-weather pressure guide — and a TPMS sensor gives you the number at the summit car park. Heading south, our Peak District guide covers the next set of Pennine crossings.
FAQ
How high is Buttertubs Pass?
The summit is at 526 m (1,726 ft), which makes it one of the higher road crossings in the Yorkshire Dales but not the highest — that is Fleet Moss at 589 m (1,932 ft), on the single-track road from Hawes into Wharfedale.
What is the best motorcycle road in the Yorkshire Dales?
Buttertubs Pass for the crossing itself, and the B6270 down Swaledale for the twenty miles afterwards. Riders who want emptiness rather than scenery usually name the Tan Hill road or Fleet Moss instead.
Are the roads difficult?
Not technically, but they are narrow. The demanding parts are single-track etiquette, drystone walls with no run-off, unfenced moorland with livestock, and cattle grids. Ride at touring pace and the Dales are one of the easiest upland areas in Britain.
When is the best time to go?
May, June and September. July and August bring the most reliable weather and the heaviest tourist traffic through Hawes, Reeth and Muker. Winter riding is possible in the dales themselves, but the moorland crossings close for snow.
How long do you need?
A long day covers Buttertubs, Swaledale and Tan Hill. Three days lets you add Wharfedale, Ribblesdale, the Ribblehead area and the western dales around Sedbergh without repeating a road.
