Paul Lydon: Rushup Edge, Edale

Now I've never walked along Rushup Edge before, although Karen has done many years ago, so that was the plan for today which was supposed to be dry with little wind.

We met Keith and Pete Collins, who we haven't seen for ages, in the café in Monyash for breakfast and afterwards left them to their digging trip in Water Icicle Close Cavern as we drove in the direction of the Chapel-en-le-Frith road from Castleton and parked in one of the laybys near the path leading up to Mam Nick where the road down into Edale passes below Mam Tor.

After walking up the slope towards Mam Nick and Mam Tor, we turned left and followed the route of the bridleway along the top of Rushup Edge, which is the western continuation of the Great Ridge separating Edale and the Hope Valley.

It seemed that most paths this weekend were very muddy, and this was no exception.

It really is a nice walk along the top of Rushup Edge which is a popular site for paragliders, but we didn't see any as we walked along, maybe it was too early as we saw a few later on in the day from below in the Edale valley.

The best thing about Rushup Edge is that you seem to get many more views than from on the southern edge of Kinder Scout both across the Hope Valley, over to Coombs Moss, the Kinder Plateau and Edale Valley and even Derwent Edge in the north-east.

Before the ridge-top path dropped back down to the road, there is a junction with the vehicle track of Chapel Gate. This is an old packhorse route open to all traffic despite not being surfaced and was controversially closed to motorised traffic for many months last year by the Peak Park in order to allow the route to recover from the vehicle usage.

Chapel Gate drops down into the Edale Valley and part way down we sat on the mossy grass next tot the track to have a hot drink when I saw some clouds of steam appear below. There is a railway between Manchester and Sheffield which passes through Edale valley and for part of the time it passes through the Cowburn Tunnel at the head of the valley. Ther was a steam train which had just popped out of the tunnel below us and it continued travelling along the railway in the valley leaving a large white plume of steam trailing behind.

Continuing on our walk we followed the remainder of the track of Chapel Gate until we met a footpath at a gate which crossed several fields and popped out onto the road to Upper Booth where we saw a baby rabbit in the hedge on the other side of the road. After following this road away from Upper Booth, we met the road which drops down from Mam Nick and passed through a gate on the opposite side of the road which led us to another footpath gain crossing fields in the direction of Lose Hill and Back Tor on the Great Ridge.

Where the foopath met a winding lane leading to a farm, we followed a rising footpath on the side of a small valley carrying a stream and this brought us eventually higher up at a stile in the fence next to the road just below Mam Nick on its way down into Edale.

We walk uphill on the road for a few hundred metres and toyed with the idea of then following the bridleway leading up to the Great Ridge on the other side of Mam Tor but we decided to leave Mam Tor for another day and after crossing a stile in the roadside fence onto a path which cut out a large loop of road, we sat on some ground covered with grassy hillocks from past land movements and ate our lunch.

When lunch was finished we followed the remainder of the path for a very short distance back onto the road and then passed through Mam Nick leaving only the grassy slope to drop back down to our starting point.