Baslow Edge and Birchen Edge

On its north-eastern side, a long chain of gritstone escarpments stands watch over the Derwent Valley like a series of natural ramparts. Their reach extends from the tracts of moorland at the heart of the Dark Peak to the cultivated landscapes of Chatsworth in the White Peak. I've walked the northern edges many a time but I'd never ventured south of Curbar Edge so a visit to that area had been overdue for a long time.

Heading onto Baslow Edge.

In mid-March 2018* there was a relatively mild and dry interlude between the waves of snow and ice that had washed over Derbyshire that winter, and this seemed the perfect opportunity for heading over that way to explore.

We parked up at Curbar Gap and walked back down the lane to where a gate gives access to Baslow Edge. A broad track leads due south from the gate but there is an "unofficial" path, not marked on the map, that closely follows the rocky edge, affording better views and more interesting terrain.

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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?"

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Bleaklow via the Higher Shelf Stones

Here's another walk that didn't quite go to plan, though this time in a good way. My original idea was to do this as a half-day outing up to the Higher Shelf Stones and back, all in all around eight and half miles, but I'd started out early and had made pretty good time when I got there so I decided to extend my route to take in Bleaklow Head as well.

Glossop Station was the start point and I had to make my way through the town centre to Old Glossop first and then past a small industrial area on Shepley Street, before I reached farmland. I'd begun a previous walk along the same initial route so I knew my way and I hoped this section would give my legs a bit of a warm up before I had to begin my ascent onto the moors. Shelf Moor and Coldharbour Moor were directly in front of me and together formed a forbidding landmass on the horizon that dwarfed the small area of pasture below their dark and sometimes craggy slopes.

Shelf Moor (l) and Coldharbour Moor (r) in the distance.

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Chinley Churn, Brown Knoll, South Head and Mount Famine

Sitting here on the sofa, all wrapped up in a fleece and nursing my man-flu while the November wind and rain batters the house from what sounds like every angle, I've decided to cheer myself up by re-visiting one of the walks I did this past summer. The hills you can see from the A6 between Chapel-en-le-Frith and Manchester had always caught my eye as we drove to and from the Peak District on days out and I decided early in June that it was about time I explored the intriguingly-named Chinley Churn and Mount Famine. The latter's more prosaic sounding companion South Head was also on the list. I'd plotted a circular route from the village of Chinley but just taking in those three summits made for a relatively short walk so I decided to extend my day to take in Brown Knoll which lies just next to the Kinder Plateau.

Leaving the lane to head up to Cracken Edge.

I arrived at Chinley railway station just before 8:00 am and it was already shaping up to be a glorious summer's day. I seem to get lost in the most unlikely places - once when I couldn't find my way out of a large empty field, for instance, or when I could see my exit from Bamford Moor ahead of me but couldn't find a way through the bogs and bracken to get to it: here it was the streets of Chinley, the railway having deposited me in a residential area. 

Usually, I'll have a gander at Google's street view so I can confidently stride to whichever gate or stile is my entrance to the countryside. On this occasion I'd forgotten to do that so I had to resort to using the GPS file on my phone to guide me through the streets. I pretended I was just intently texting and hoped I didn't look like a complete numpty as I wandered past the locals leaving their homes for work and school. 

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North Kinder

Earlier this year I walked from Glossop to Edale, heading up the Doctors Gate Path and joining the Pennine Way at Snake Pass to make my crossing of the Kinder Plateau. It was to lead me across ground I'd walked many times before on the southern side of Kinder but when I first reached the plateau from Mill Hill and looked eastwards down onto Black Ashop Moor, I realised that in all the times I had climbed this iconic peak I'd never explored its vast northern edge.

A few days after I finished that walk, I sat down to plot myself a route. Not being a driver, I try to keep the Dark Peak reserved for solo walks, as the public transport links from Manchester are pretty decent and I can access the area relatively quickly and easily. My plan was to join the north ridge at its most westerly point, where it juts out quite distinctly above Mill Hill, and head east, following it round until I was above Edale. At the time I assumed I would be tackling this walk in the near future so I decided to avoid repeating the Doctor's Gate Path so soon after I'd just done it and take a different approach to the summit. The Sett Valley Trail seemed to promise an easy warm-up walk from the railway line at New Mills to Hayfield and the Kinder Reservoir.

The Torrs Millennium Walkway at the start of my walk.

Well, "best laid plans" and all that... That was last spring - now here we are in autumn and I have finally managed to squeeze this walk in at the end of September. The weather has been unseasonably warm and even though we'd just had a week's leave to go walking and have days out, I decided to take a further last minute day off at the end of my first week back - "easing yourself back into the daily grind after a break", I call it. Or "I can't face a full week in that hellish office" is perhaps another way of phrasing it.

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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. 

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