We left the car park in Edale and stopped at the Moorland Centre (National Park information centre) for a look around and then continued a short way further along the road and then left it on a footpath between the camp site at the Moorland Centre and the village cemetery.
This continued through fields paralleling the Great Ridge and the Edale valley road passing through the farmyard at Ollerbrook farm and then past some more farmhouses and cottages.
This brought us to a gate at Rowland Cote, the Edale Youth Hostel where the public footpath passes through the Youth Hostel's grounds.
We passed a group of kids with instructors from the Youth Hostel (which is also and “Activity Centre”) having a great time taking part in an activity involving building a tower of plastic crates while standing on the top of them and slo being belayed with ropes.
The path left the Youth Hostel's drive and our intended route should have followed a path to the right over a wooden footbridge. I was looking at an obvious path to the left through a gate which made its way up the side of a valley, or Clough as they are called around here, called Lady Clough, with a small stream flowing down it.
The path was narrow and fairly muddy in places and to start was very pleasant.
We stopped for a sip of hot drink at the small remains of a sheep fold and after looking at the map, we continued on the narrow path, probably a sheep track, as it didn't appear to get very steep.
After a short muddy step about a metre high which we mounted by grabbing clumps of heather and clambering up, there was a slope of heather-covered ground.
It had been misty and drizzly for the past half and hour or so and despite the cool temperatures, we found it fairly warm due to the steepness of the route but now as we approached the plateau forming Kinder Scout, it was noticeably colder.
We arrived at the path following the edge of the plateau and we paused for a moment so that I could put on my Paramo Summit Hoodie fleece jacket under my Paramo Viento jacket which I had been wearing up to then.
We walked along the edge path which was quite muddy with some parts being wet black peat and some wet sandy eroded gritstone.
The mist which we had met as we approached the height of the plateau now began to rise and views across to the Great Ridge and across to Ladybower Reservoir and Derwent Edge opened out.
We reached the easternmost point of the plateau at Crookstone Knoll and after clambering down a short step, we sat in the shelter of the small rocky promontory and ate lunch as we looked across the Snake road and the obvious huge ancient landslip of Alport Castle opposite.
We knew a path dropped down from Kinder towards Win Hill via Hope Cross and had passed the junction where it started down a little earlier and now we could see it down below. It looked like we wouldn't have to retrace our steps to the path junction but we could make our way down the mossy and heather covered slope below to reach the path further down. So, this is what we did.
The path continued along rough grassy ground to reach a junction with a bridleway near Hope Cross and this was our route back.
We walked along the bridleway, which was a rough vehicle track and had been our intended route in the first place, but in the opposite direction – if we hadn't decided to follow the route up Lady Clough earlier. As we walked along, we could hear the call of a Curlew.
After arriving at the wooden bridge by Edale Youth Hostel, we then just followed the same route back to Edale from here.
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| Activity Group at Edale Youth Hostel |
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| Karen in Lady Clough |
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| Sign Post and older Guide Stoop |
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| Guide Stoop |
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| Edale Church |
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