I had a look yesterday MT, I headed down the dales way from Lanshaw Lad (since when did they change the duckboards for gritstone? big improvement imho, I hate duckboards much more than gritstone), when I got to the top of rocky valley I headed across the ridge east. You need to bear right as you get through rocky valley on a fairly clear path before the stream and this leads you up to the culvert on a trod. Jump/wade across and you hit a decent path that threads along the ridge and eventually joins the path you would have come on to after the climb you did. I'm not sure it's massively quicker but there is less climb as you don't lose as much height.