Full-on Peak District
Full-on hillwalking without venturing into a high, white wilderness? Here’s how to pack six of the Peak’s sharpest summits into one epic weekend.
Find out how to pack in six rather pointy Peaks hills in just one weekend!
Think of the glorious Peak District and what comes to mind? Rolling grassy hills, rocky tors, and cliff edges. Oh yes, plenty of edges. In fact, there are more edges in this National Park than a rhombicosidodecahedron (that is a real thing, with a lot of edges, Google it). Now don’t get me wrong, this is not a bad thing. Those edges are blooming beautiful; high cliffs of weather-smoothed gritstone swooping off into the distance; great heather crested waves with grey rock froth. Indeed, one edge even starred with Keira Knightley in Pride and Prejudice. But it does lead you to think, “Why isn’t this place called ‘The Edge District’?”
I’ll tell you why. Because if you look beyond these exquisite edges, the Peak District is hiding summits more pointed and classically mountain-shaped than many of your more traditional heights like, oooh, Scafell Pike (big, old, humpy thing) or Helvellyn (huge, flat plateau). Even Ben Nevis looks distinctively halfdome-like from the tourist track. Yes, in the Peaks you will indeed find peaks – sharp, steep, perfectly triangular cloud-cutters; arrowheads jabbing the sky.
Photographer Tom and I chose the most epic six to inspire you: a triplet in the more northerly Dark Peak near Castleton, then a trio in the White Peak southeast of Buxton. Hiking these, you can enjoy a heroic weekend of multiple summit-bagging, each with its own particular intrigue.
START WITH THE HIGHEST
Winning the prize for most historic yet destructive mountain, Mam Tor was first. Widely cone-shaped with lush grass slopes, a late Bronze Age/early Iron Age fort surrounds this summit. I’m not entirely sure what drew the early humans here as, although beautiful, it’s always viciously windy.
Perhaps it was calmer in 12,000 BC but I’ve never summited Mam Tor without thinking I’m about to be shoved unceremoniously from it’s cobbled top by a rude south-westerly, and this time was no exception. Once the wonderfully steep, grassy then rock-stepped climb through the ruined walls was done, this mini-mountain fully lived up to its pointyness with impressive, icy blasts fit for Everest. Here, despite being only at 517m, you feel thrillingly high. One particularly fierce gust was nearly enough to knock me off the trig point! But that’s not the half of Mam Tor’s destructive nature. That evidence is on the slopes below, which we’ll come to on the way back. From here, however, Lose Hill looked delightfully pointy, elbowing blue sky at the tip of the ridge ahead. Furthermore, its name was inspired by a completely made-up story.
ON TO A ‘LOSER’
If I were a hill, even a delightfully pointy one, I would balk at being called a loser. Especially without good reason, for Lose Hill is tremendous, and said story
unproven. For starters, a flagstoned path winds gently along the ridge top, making it easy to navigate so you can freely enjoy the huge vistas to the north-west. We stood a moment. The land dipped down to patchwork fields of olive, brown and gold across the Edale valley, then sharply rose to the Kinder plateau. This upland hides the Peak’s highest ‘peak’, Kinder Scout at 636m, but you wouldn’t know it – this peat-hag-riddled moor is as flat as a sun-cracked cowpat.
Secondly, scaling the rocky staircase over Back Tor before Lose Hill’s 476m top made my leg muscles burn as much as any Lake District mountain scramble. On Lose Hill’s engraved, bronze-topped summit cairn I located the day’s third and final peak, Win Hill – a spectacular wedge of distant rock. Legend has it that here in 626, Wessex forces gathered to wage war on the Northumbrians atop Win Hill. Despite a smaller army, the Northumbrians defeated them with rolling boulders. Win Hill’s name was born. And, therefore, by default, Lose. I wondered if any boulders were still rollable. I was about to find out.
DO THE BOULDERS MOVE?
Nipping across to Win Hill, my legs started to notice the climb. Individually, these peaks aren’t super-high, but if you’re used to scaling a lofty mountain then coasting down for tea, this triple hill repeat really does gives your thighs something to think about. Today was starting to become epic. And the boulder-testing was still to come.
This grassy slog from the valley floor meant Win Hill at 462m was the longest climb of the day, littered with boot-gripping chunks of rough, gritty rock. It was a heart-thumping scramble up the final push to this perfectly pointed summit where, in the brain-cleaning breeze, the view opened up. Beneath azure skies and the creeping shadows of the fading light, a shadowy forest breathed below, concealing the vast reservoir of
“WIN HILL AT 462M WAS THE LONGEST CLIMB OF THE DAY”
Ladybower. Bamford, then Stanage, then Shatton Edge curved into blurred oblivion. Stone farms reflected the sinking sun and our previous peaks looked far, far away, brushed with fairy-tale sparkle. Win Hill, too, felt high. Especially once I started clambering around on the boulders, seeing if any would still move as per the battle myth. Nope, nothing. A sheep watched me, nonplussed, then shuffled down the hill. We followed it. Time to return over the flanks of Lose Hill and discover the final secret on Mam Tor’s eastern slopes.
It’s not pretty. But it is pretty crazy. You see, our first peak has fully chewed up the old A625 road and spat out shattered tarmac, rendering it, since 1979, useful only to cyclists and things with feet. We negotiated this earthquaked section with care. Landslips are to blame. This ground has been ever so slowly, minding its own business, sliding downhill for thousands of years and it wasn’t about to stop that for a mere road. And good on it I say. It makes for an interesting end to a full day of peak-bagging. Better still, even pointier hills holding more secrets were to come on day two.
WHO LIVES HERE?
Ah, the British weather. The Peak District was in a totally different mood on day two! Gone was that refreshing, can-do, alpine feel of sun, blue sky and ice-cold wind; back was the familiar, moany drizzle from stubbornly grey skies. But what this day lacked in panoramic views, it definitely made up for in intrigue – a different highlight from each peak. And an amusing pub for photographer Tom. We parked outside Earl Sterndale’s 400-year-old inn, The Quiet Woman. “Fine,” you say, “what’s wrong with that?” Well, the woman on the sign has been decapitated for being too talkative! With Tom chuckling, we strode along the road, easing aching legs into action for the day’s trio.
Rising up from relatively flat surroundings like an
“LIMESTONE REEFS OF CHROME AND PARKHOUSE HILLS, BOTH JUTTING UP LIKE CLAM SHELL HALVES”
old A-frame tent with a taut, green flysheet of grass, 422m High Wheeldon was our first lung-challenger. However, the steep ascent to the summit trig wasn’t the main highlight. Following the unmapped trail north-west from the trig, down a slippery limestone spine, we came across a large dent – Fox Hole Cave. Oooh!
Excited, we leapt down to discover a locked gate across a deep, black cave. Thoughts of Paleolithic human remains, perhaps a woolly mammoth or at least a Druid’s dagger crossed our minds, only to be dashed when I rang the number on the adjacent plaque. “Bats,” said the National Park ranger. “They nest in there so it’s a protected site.”
WALKING OVER ANCIENT CORAL
We squelched across sodden fields towards the ancient limestone reefs of Chrome and Parkhouse Hills, both jutting up like clam shell halves. Just how many tiny skeletons of coral, sponges and shells make up this thrillingly fossil-infused rock made my brain boggle as we passed Parkhouse, heading for the higher Chrome before the clouds sank around its 425m top. At least the rain made it truer to ancient times – waterlogged, but without the fish. Well, apart from Tom’s canned lunch.
Hoping to spot a Gigantoproductus fossil in this Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), we attacked Chrome Hill. A snaking singletrack ridge soon gave way to a steep-sided wall of grass, before the final rock-topped summit. Here the view of our final peak, Parkhouse Hill, was even more spectacular. These tiny mountains feel Matterhorn-high because they launch out of much flatter land, limestone spines skimming the horizon, but that wasn’t all – Chrome Hill boasts two secrets. First, a rock arch you can walk over or through before descending via its slippery north-west ridge. Fun! The second, eerier excitement, Parkhouse Hill also shares.
PHENOMENAL SUNSETS
Legs protesting at one last climb, rain a soft, pattering drumroll on our hoods, we slid across muddy grass to Parkhouse’s pillar, a rhino horn of rock at the head of this 360m mini-mountain. On a dry day the brave can scramble up this limestone pinnacle, but today it was a slippery deathtrap. Instead, we focused on getting our final peak in the bag.
Shrouded in drizzle we saw Glutton Grange farm where, 20 years ago, a dazzling discovery was made. From here you might catch a double sunset in spring and autumn as the sun sinks behind one of Parkhouse’s twin crests, reappearing immediately, to set again behind the next. Incredible! Chrome Hill experiences the same phenomenon, but these two hills will only be in the right alignment for another 2,700 years, so you’d better diarise this walk sharpish. Confident that today’s mist soup would prevent any kind of sunset viewing we trotted back to Earl Sterndale to see if the pub was still serving. Two hill-weary, leaden-legged hikers needed hydrating after two full-on days climbing the Peaks’ six pointiest peaks.
Only one, whispered, word required: epic.