Walk southeast along the road for 300yds (274m) to take a track on the left past cottages, Warland Gate End. Cross the Rochdale Canal on a swing bridge and follow the track over a stream to zig-zag steeply up the hill. Where the track later forks, keep right through an ornamental gate towards Calflee House. Turn right when you reach a T-junction. Approaching the house, go through a second gate and swing left on a track that leads up to another house. Pass around the back of the building to find a field gate and continue across the open moor on a rising rough track. As you approach the retaining embankment of Warland Reservoir, follow the track to the right, which slants upwards to reach the reservoir.

Double back left along the top of the dam, from which there are terrific views over Calderdale and East Lancashire. Cross a bridge at the northern end of the reservoir, and keep on the track as it follows a drainage channel.

When both track and channel wheel to the right, go left in front of a stone bridge, to follow a flagged path in the direction of another, smaller lake, Gaddings Reservoir. It supplemented water supplies for the textile mills in the valley disrupted by the construction of the canal. There are two windfarms on the distance, built to take advantage of the winds that sweep the Pennines.

Bear half left at the far end of the reservoir, down stone steps and continue along a clear path that soon passes close to the curiously shaped outcrop called the Basin Stone. Shortly you come to a meeting of paths, marked with a small waymarker post.

Turn left here, on a path that’s soon delineated by causeway stones; you are now following Salter Rake, the old packhorse road. Enjoy excellent views over Walsden as you make a gradual descent, still across open moorland, then accompanying a wall. Eventually, leave the moor through a gate and continue to a junction opposite a mullion-windowed farmhouse. Bear left to pass a second house, Hollingworth Gate, walking through a gate back onto the moor. Immediately branch right off the track on to a causeway path, marked as the Pennine Bridleway. It later swings above another farmhouse and before long, winds across a beck to reach the tiny hillside settlement of Bottomley. Go right here, down a metalled track, but then bear immediately right again, through a gate, along a cobbled, walled path heading directly downhill, which takes you to the Rochdale Canal.

Cross the canal by the side of Bottomley Lock, and walk left along the canal tow path. An easy stroll of about 0.5 miles (800m) takes you back to the swing bridge straddling the Yorkshire–Lancashire border over which you set out. Go right to the main road and right again back to your car.