Kinder Scout

Kinder Scout is the highest ground in the Peak District, a broad peat plateau topping out at 636 metres above the village of Edale. It is not a pointed summit but a huge, wild tableland of black peat, cut through by deep channels called groughs that make the going slow and muddy after rain. The edges are the best of it, with gritstone rocks weathered into odd shapes and long views out over the moors.

The mountain has a place in British history. In 1932 a group of walkers set out from Hayfield on the Kinder Mass Trespass, deliberately walking onto private moorland to protest that ordinary people were shut out of the hills. Several were arrested and jailed, but the protest became a landmark in the long campaign that led to national parks and the right to roam we have today. The land here is now looked after by the National Trust and open to walk.

The Pennine Way, the long-distance path up the spine of England, begins in Edale and climbs straight onto the plateau, and most day walkers make a circuit up onto the edges and back. On the western side the stream at Kinder Downfall spills over the rim, and in a strong westerly wind the water gets blown back up over the top in a plume you can see from a distance. Navigation across the featureless middle is genuinely tricky in cloud, so carry a map and compass and don’t rely on following footprints in the peat. While you are in the area, Mam Tor to the south-east makes an easier hill on another day.

Visit on the National Trust website →

More at hill-bagging.co.uk