Peak & Lake District Sojourn. Day 8.

Howden Edge 551m, Derwent Valley, Peak District.

Summary

Today was a beautiful bimble up and around beautiful Derwent Reservoir of Dambusters fame to take in trig pointed Margery Hill at 546m and Howden Edge at 551m. The latter being the county/unitary top for Sheffield.

It was even a stunning drive to the start point coming over gorgeous craggy Winnats Pass down into quaint little Castleton and Hope villages. This was then only followed by the gorgeous drive up past Ladybower and Derwent Reservoir right to the end point of the Derwent valley for the hike.

Parking was right at the end of the tarmac single track road. There is a small roundabout there and parking on the lake side of the road. I was there at eight in the morning and the only vehicle there. By the time I was back though there were no parking slots left. There is also no vehicle access up the Derwent Valley on Weekends and Bank Holidays.

As for the hike you simply go through the gate at the end of the road and follow the forest trail through the woods. You eventually come out of the woods and cross over the Derwent river on a stone bridge. Keep going and the obvious path veers right around the hill in front of you. The views are gorgeous and the path is great.

The path gets steeper here and heads off NE. It was all lovely stuff so much so my brain went into complete shutdown and I took no notice of the obvious large cairn for my turn off and carried straight on (see the obvious gps spike). Anyway, I came back to the cairn and headed South towards Margery Hill which didn’t take long. Keep heading South and a kilometre later you come to a small cairn near the path which marks the top of Howden Edge/High Stones. After this you head South again for another kilometre until you come to the remains of a stone wall. I followed a good wide track past it for a while before heading towards the wall and then followed a stream over rough terrain/indistinct paths all the way down to Howden Clough where you go through a gate into the forest. Now what I will say that between the big Cairn and Howden Clough the paths was very hit and miss, quite a lot of boggy bits on the ridge and rough terrain on the steepish decent but overall not too bad. In winter or after prolonged rain however then the underfoot conditions would be much worse.

Once in forest simply follow a gorgeous trail down to the wide track lakeside and turn right to follow it all the way back North for nearly three kilometres to the stone bridge. Once at the bridge you know the way back to the start point.

The hike was remiss of hiking in the Elan valley. A steep trail out of a valley and then pretty flat rugged moorland bleakness between two tops and a steep decent. An absolutely stunning part of the world to be in on a sunny day.

Parking: Roadside for about 20-25 cars. No access on WK or BH.

Route: Good forest tracks and trails, good mountain path up, boggy and hit or miss paths from big stone cairn and re entering the forest at Howden Clough.

Route Statistics: All in all a 14km day with 400m of height gain done in 3.5 hours.