A-Walking: Edale Ecstacy

This was the first of two A-Walks that took place during the SRC walking Weekend at Castleton in Derbyshire.

Our three expeditions on Saturday, 9th October, each took place in the Vale of Edale area of the Peak District. The three walks each set off from Edale Station. Being circular walks, the A-Walk and the B-Walk each returned to this location. The C-Walk finished in Castleton.

After leaving the car park at Edale Station {SK 123 853}, the intent of the A-Walk was to visit Upper Booth, Jacob's Ladder, Kinder Low, Kinder Downfall, Kinder Reservoir Edale Cross, Brown Knoll and Barber Booth before arriving at our final destination back at Edale Station.

We left our drop-off point at about 9.55 am. There were five people in the group: PB, RB, JH, LM and JT. PB led the walk.

We set off from the car park at Edale Station in a northerly direction along the road to the village of Edale {SK 123 855}. At the start of the Pennine Way (PW), in Grindsbrook Booth {SK 122 859}, we turned right and followed its route across the fields to Upper Booth {SK 102 852}. Leaving Upper Booth in a westerly direction, we continued along the PW on a north-westerly bearing to the footbridge at {SK 088 861} - see the picture below.


From here we had a good climb up Jacob’s Ladder to reach the footpath junction at {SK 080 861}. Turning right onto a northerly bearing, we stayed with the Pennine Way, climbing up to Edale Rocks and the trig point (OSBM S4113) at Kinder Low {SK 078 870}.


We maintained our northerly trek along the PW, in rather misty conditions, to reach the ford at Red Brook {SK 080 879} - eventually reaching the River Kinder at Kinder Downfall {SK 08315 88927}. At this point we changed to a north-westerly bearing and made our way to the north-western extremity of Kinder Scout {SK 066 899}.

We descended from the high ground to reach a track junction at {SK 063 902}. We now left the Pennine Way by turning onto a south-westerly bearing - following a good footpath into William Clough {SK 06105 89452}. As we reached Nab Brow {SK 058 885} and White Brow {SK 054 883} we had some good views of Kinder Reservoir on our left. Because the views were so good, we took advantage of our position above the reservoir and had a short lunch stop here.


Leaving our lunch stop location, we half-circled in an anticlockwise direction to reach {SK 057 877}. At this point we took a track on our right that led us in a south-easterly direction to a walled footpath at {SK 065 871} near Broad Clough.

We followed this path in a southerly direction towards Kinderlow End and contoured around to our left to reach Oaken Clough where we joined a track at {SK 072 862}. We followed this path in an easterly direction to Stony Ford and Edale Cross {SK 077 861}. Continuing along the track, we made our way to the path junction at {SK 080 861} which we had passed by some hours previously. Now turning onto a south-westerly bearing, we made our way to the trig point (OSBM S2782) on Brown Knoll {SK 083 851}.


Continuing our south-westerly trek over the moorland terrain, our route now took us to {SK 098 831} where we turned left onto a north-easterly bearing in order to reach Chapel Gate {SK 103 836} - a track that took us downhill to a minor road at (SK 113 842).

Turning left, we continued downhill in a northerly direction to the small village of Barber Booth. At {SK 113 846} we picked up a public footpath on our right that took us in an easterly direction across to Harden Clough {SK 123 846}. Now turning left onto a northerly bearing, we followed a farm track pass Hardenclough Farm {SK 124 848} towards the minor road at {SK 123 852}. From here we made our way back to the car park at Edale Station where our coach was waiting to take us back to Castleton.

Use the buttons below to see where we went, how we did and some of the photos.

    

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