Howden Moors - Crow Stones, Outer Edge and Margery Hill

The long trail that winds around the Derwent and Howden reservoirs from the visitor centre at Fairholmes is a popular one. Even on a weekday you're likely to pass friends out for a stroll, hikers with poles and backpacks, families on foot and families on bikes, their giddy children and still giddier dogs in tow; and then there are the fitness enthusiasts - friendly joggers that nod and smile, and focused runners, to whom you're just a blur on the periphery of vision. Write them all down on a postcard and most days perhaps you'd be able to tick them off and call "House!" in a game of Reservoir Bingo. You'd scarcely believe that just a few hundred feet above this busy spot lies some of the least-visited moorland in the Dark Peak.

Derwent Reservoir Dam.

That swathe of undulating heather and peat, its high edges crumpled by deep cloughs, is Howden Moor. I decided to head here a few days after my last visit to Bleaklow, which had ended on a dispiriting note with the crossing of Harrop Moss. I felt certain that it would restore my faith in the moorland landscapes of the Peak District and I wasn't to be disappointed.

Fairholmes was my starting point and I passed the impressive Derwent Reservoir Dam to join the trail on the eastern side of the reservoir. I'd managed to connive a lift here, as I don't drive, and was setting off around lunch time. It was a warm autumn day and though the incline of the path is barely perceptible it didn't take long for my outer shell to come off in the heat.  The sunshine had drawn people out - I exchanged greetings with them as we passed each other and had to disappoint one runner who called back over her shoulder with an air of sudden, delighted recognition, "Oh, are you Roy?"

Read More

Burbage Rocks and Stanage Edge

Or, "How Poor Decision Making and Stubbornness Deprived Me of My Beer and Made Me Late for Dinner."

The Dark Peak is famous for its huge grit stone edges, draws for walkers and climbers alike, but few are quite as impressive as Stanage Edge: viewed from its southern end near Upper Burbage Bridge, the six kilometre sweep of millstone grit undulates before you like a breaking wave, permanently suspended above the Hope Valley. From the 458 metre vantage point of High Neb, Win Hill and the peaks of the Great Ridge seem diminished, while the vista over towards Eyam Moor is a gently rolling, pastoral affair; only the dark bulk of the Kinder Plateau beyond them feels like it can match this iconic escarpment in might.

My walk was to take in Stanage Edge as its climax but I also wanted to explore Burbage Rocks first, another escarpment that runs south in the form of a broken crescent, from Upper Burbage Bridge to the Longshaw Estate. 

Read More