This is the Most Dangerous Stretch of River on Earth -- The Strid in Strid Wood

I'm going to strap my GoPro to a cabbage and send it down next time. #science

Imagine after saying all that, he just goes, “ok let’s have a go.” And cannonballs into the river.

“Some say it’s as deep as a Yorkshireman’s pocket”

I feel like a great tourist slogan for this place would be "The Bolton Strid: Fuck Around and Find Out."

I live locally to the Strid & have always respected it. I have been there when the river was in full flood after 36 hours rain and the rocks you were filming from were invisible. The water's power was awesome. My cousin Greg was a retained firefighter about 20 years ago and was training for water rescue. As an advanced exercise, the Fire & Rescue teams from Skipton and also Harrogate got together with FULL safety & backup, ropes, scuba diving kit & emergency team on standby and explored the Strid when the water was low(ish!). As you say, it is apparently a huge, undercut cave below those rocks and extremely dangerous with a depth of about 30ft (9m) & a big, powerful current which would swirl you around like a washing machine. Its danger lies in the fact that it looks so small, harmless. Don't be fooled. It's only about 10 years ago when someone on their honeymoon was swept away and lost their life. It is tempting to try to jump across the narrowest part - try and you stand a good chance of winning a Darwin Award.

I visited The Strid as a teenager. That jump looks so doable but really isn't. And the water flow (not on a 'busy' day as in this video) is truly hypnotic. It's genuinely a very dangerous place.

I took my dog on a boat trip down this river didn’t know it was dangerous dog panicked before this stretch madly so took her to the bank and she led me past this gulley. I owe my life to her.

Hazy, I was a Paramedic and member of the fell rescue, I was involved in the search for the honeymoon couple, absolutely tragic. It’s lethal in that water. Good video.👍

Just about every school kid in Yorkshire has been on a school trip to Bolton Abbey and has been warned and double warned by their teachers don't go near the strid and definately don't try to jump it this place has legendary status in Yorkshire as being one of the country's most dangerous places very picturesque but deadly

It would be incredibly fascinating if they could somehow divert the water temporarily to see exactly what's underneath that stretch. I know it's not feasible and wantonly unnecessary, but heck they did that with Niagara falls. Whimsical wishes I know

Love this new little documentary format. I'd watch the shit out of series about hidden nature gems in the UK.

When I was a kid we often went for family trips to Bolton Abbey and followed the trails along the Strid. On one occasion there was a man and his border collie ahead of us. His dog casually jumped in the water and never surfaced, probably not too far from this video's location. The memory of the man shouting his dog's name in desperation still haunts me even now. There's a popular tombstoning spot not far downstream but that stretch of the river is a lot wider. I can imagine a lot of visitors would be tempted to jump over the narrow gap to the opposite bank so it's important to get the message out; you are probably not coming out alive and if you do you would be pulverised on the rocks by the force of the current.

We've really learned to see dangerous landscapes as a foreign thing here I think. When you ask what the most dangerous rivers are, people usually give answers like the Nile, the Congo, the Amazon because they're big and filled with scary carnivores. But this is a perfect example of how the most dangerous things don't necessarily LOOK dangerous.

Top advice from mr Haze . Respect Mother nature shes not going ask twice.

Aged 15 I stood at one side of The Strid and contemplated going for it. I 'm still alive so I suppose that was the start of my adulthood.

Very wise advice. I am an old whitewater kayaker in the Great Smoky Mountains, U.S. The "big boys" from out of town would come to town and tell me the expedition down streams like this would be fun. For them it was truly relaxing fun, but for me, it would take hours to describe all my horrific injuries sustained over the years. I would do it all again, and probably will. Those undercut rocks and strong currents and "washing machine" traps are very, very real.

Something to remember is that water can move a stone that is as tall as half the depth of the river - a 6 foot deep stream can move a 3 foot rock; think about how bulky a 3 foot rock is, and how shallow 6 feet seems, and you might get an idea of the power here

Bit different, but quality as always. When haze says "listen, lads, this is dangerous" take heed, if this man isn't cracking a joke and jumping in it must be fecking dangerous.

“Some say ... some say ... and some people say” all we know is he's called the stig

Great commentary Haze! I live in the US in the desert where it is dry "most" of the time. Few years ago a homeless man was under a road overpass camping out in a flood channel. It rained up in the mountains and the water came down swept him away. My wife worked in a building a ways down stream in front of this channel and the water at this point was not wide, not deep, but kind of fast and was all concrete. Anyway, people were alerted and they went out too see if they could grab this guy as he came by. He came floating down the channel in maybe a foot of water or less but he was moving fairly fast and no one could hold him when they reached for him. Fortunate for him a group of guys working down stream a ways were able to get a rope on him and pulled him out. Not too much farther was where the diversion channel went underground and out to the river a few miles away.