A difficult route in Peak District. Check the GPS track on Outdooractive for full details of the route, waypoints, and terrain.
Starting Point: Edale car park (SK 124 853)
Terrain: Road, lane, field paths, Barber Booth, road, Chapel Gate track, open moorland, paved flagstone path, Brown Knoll, moorland path, Pennine Way, Swine's Back, Edale Rocks, Kinder Low trig, faint moorland path, Kinder Scout highest point, Pennine Way, Jacob's Ladder, footbridge, Pennine Way, Lee Farm, Upper Booth Farm, Broadlee-Bank Tor, Grindsbrook Booth, road PARKING NOTE: Edale car park is well managed and tickets are issued for cars not parked correctly within a designated bay. Take care when parking. NAVIGATION WARNING — KINDER SCOUT HIGHEST POINT: The path from Kinder Low to the true summit of Kinder Scout at SK 084 875 is faint and in places non-existent across the plateau. In poor visibility this short out and back requires good navigation skills — it is easy to become disoriented on the featureless moorland. In clear conditions it is straightforward; in mist or low cloud, a compass bearing is essential.
A magnificent day on the roof of the Peak District, combining a classic approach via the Chapel Gate track with the high plateau of Kinder Scout in perfect clear conditions. Brown Knoll sets the tone — a fine moorland summit reached by paved flagstones that transform what would otherwise be an exercise in bog-wading into a pleasure — and the Pennine Way north to Kinder Low delivers some of the finest gritstone scenery in England, with the weathered rock formations of Edale Rocks among the most extraordinary natural sculptures on any English hillside. The detour to the true summit of Kinder Scout at 636 metres is short but rewarding, the small cairn sitting on a plateau that on a cloudless day offers a panorama of genuinely startling range. Jacob's Ladder is a path freighted with history — to descend it is to follow the Sheffield contingent of the 1932 Mass Trespass, and to walk the ground that those young workers from the factory towns fought and were imprisoned to open. The return along the Pennine Way via Upper Booth is a pleasant and well-graded finish, and the ice cream at Grindsbrook Booth, it must be said, was entirely earned.