Kinder Scout 636m, Edale, Lake District.
Summary
Well today was a drive through the beautiful Edale Valley to Edale Village to hike up Kinder Scout and to meander around the Kinder plateau in a longish loop. A beautiful weather day in the main with stunning valley and high moorland scenery. As far as lists go it is pure peak bagging pornography, Kinder is a national park high point, Nuttall, Marilyn and a County High Point to just begin with but I have to stop there as I will get too excited! Ohhh yes and three trig points bagged as well.
Parking was at the main car park in Edale Village. Large but a pay and display. It was £6 for 10 hours. Toilets available. From the car park walk up the village and turn left by the Nags Head pub to the official start of the Pennine Way. The start is beautiful as you follow the PW along a good path that undulates across fields and meadows with gorgeous views to the foot of Jacobs Ladder. Then it is steeply up JL to the cairn at the top where you hang a left and do the twenty minute out and back trip to the trig point at Brown Knoll. All easy enough and on good paths.
Then it is back on the PW heading North to Edale Rocks and then onto the rock mounted TP at Kinder Low. This TP is not the official summit of Kinder Scout, that is a little ways inland in a NE direction. There is a feint path to it but it is easy to miss. If it helps I used the Peakbagger App and it took me directly to it. It being a small pile of stones.
From the summit cairn you head NW to get back onto the PW and keep heading North to Kinder Downfall. Excuse me here as I forgot to resume my Gps so there is a straight line stretch but you basically go left towards Sandy Heys. Here head right to come back round to the third TP of the day called the Edge. You have to hop over a fence here too so be careful as sections of it are electrified. Once at this TP we just headed back to the PW and retraced our route to Kinder Downfall.
Now when I planned this next part of the route to Crowden Tower (SE) I did note that the OS path went through the centre of the plateau and was somewhat off piste. I assumed the ground would be boggy and wet but there would be a path there, right…wrong! I followed some feint paths and did follow the path of least resistance but still ended up going off track somewhat. The peat bog was pretty horrendous and at times I encountered ravines around 2-3 meters deep. Some people coming the other way came to the same conclusion as I did, a decent path was not to be had.
I was in the end quite grateful to get to the stunning viewpoint that is Crowden Tower with its quirky rocks for a rest. Then after this it was back on decent paths heading East to another stunning rocky viewpoint called Grindslew Knoll. From here it was a simple matter of following the excellent trail off the top of the knoll down back into Edale with glorious views of the famed Edale Valley all the way. My Gps stops in Edale village not the car park as coffee and cake beckoned in Newfold Farm Cafe.
Parking: Large car park with an overflow. Pay and Display. £6 for 10 hours and toilets available.
Route: Superb trails, rocky trails, steep trails, undulating trails, very little grassy trails and one leg of peat bog hell for about two kilometres. On the whole sumptuous valley and mountain views, quirky rock formations and three trig points.
Route Statistics: 21km and 700m of height gain done in a sloth time of 6 hours 45 minutes. The boggy section slowed me down a lot along with copious rest stops taking 137 iPhone pictures!
Info sheets.
First section from Edale Village, Jacobs Ladder to Kinder summit cairn.
Kinder summit cairn to Edge TP, Crowden Tower, Grindslow Knoll to Edale.