Buttertubs Pass

The mountain road between Wensleydale and Swaledale, made famous by the 2014 Tour de France and still the best ribbon-of-tarmac shot in the north. Pull-ins near the 526m summit let you TOAL a few steps from the car on rough open access moor, and the compositions come easy: the road snaking down towards Thwaite with Swaledale's field barns and drystone-wall grid below, the flanks of Great Shunner Fell and Lovely Seat either side, and the Buttertubs themselves — fluted limestone potholes 20m deep right beside the road — which make a genuinely unusual top-down subject you won't get anywhere else. It's a quiet spot most of the time; the traffic is sheep, cyclists grinding the climb, and weekend motorbikes. The flying gotcha is the pass itself: wind accelerates through the gap viciously, and a forecast 15mph in Hawes can be 30mph with rotor at the summit, so check the drone's ground speed early and keep your battery reserve honest. Sheep graze everywhere — keep height over livestock, especially at lambing time in spring, and note curlew and lapwing nest on these moors through early summer. No National Trust land, no FRZ within tens of kilometres, no crowds: just weather.