Skip to content
Exploring Peaks
Menu

Kinder Scout and Castleton, from Edale

The Pennine Way's first steps, and the ridge beside it.

One base: Edale. You unpack once.

Kinder Scout and Castleton, from Edale
Photo: Peter Turner, via Wikimedia Commons (source), CC BY-SA 2.0 licence, fetched 2026-08-31
Nights
3
Walking
26 km
Total ascent
1115 m
Best in
Spring, Summer, Autumn

Edale is barely a hamlet, a scatter of houses, two pubs and a station strung along a lane that stops being much use to cars before it stops being useful to walkers. What it has instead is position: Kinder Scout fills the skyline to the north, the Great Ridge closes off the view to the south, and the Pennine Way officially starts here. Three nights is enough to take both fells and add a change of pace in Castleton.

Who this suits

Fit walkers who want two full days on foot without needing a car for either of them, since both Mam Tor and Kinder Scout start from the village itself. Kinder Scout in particular involves a scramble near the top of Grindsbrook and a plateau with no obvious path across it, rated hard rather than moderate, so this is not a trip for a first fell. Cave Dale on the third day is deliberately gentler, a way to end the trip on a shorter, lower day rather than a third summit.

The honest caveat

The National Park Authority ended its visitor facilities at Edale’s Moorland Centre in March 2025, so there is no staffed visitor centre to rely on for advice or a warm room between walks, and the village itself has only two pubs and a small shop for supplies. This suits people happy to be self-sufficient more than people wanting a wide choice of places to eat. Anyone who finds Grindsbrook’s scrambling and the featureless plateau beyond it more than they bargained for should treat that as useful information about the rest of the Dark Peak, not a bad day out.

Day by day

  1. Day 1

    Mam Tor and the Great Ridge

    From Edale the path goes out by Ollerbrook and climbs to Hollins Cross, the low col on the ridge, then follows the flagstones to Mam Tor's summit, the site of a Bronze and Iron Age hillfort with its ramparts still visible in the turf, and drops back to the village; Peak District Walks gives the round as 7.3km and 332m of ascent. Most visitors drive round to the Mam Nick car park on the far side instead, the start of the shorter circuit on the Mam Tor page.

  2. Day 2

    Kinder Scout via Grindsbrook Clough

    This follows the Pennine Way's original line straight out of the village, up the rocky ravine of Grindsbrook Clough onto a plateau of peat and gritstone tors with no path across it, ground the 1932 mass trespass helped open to walkers at all. The descent by Jacob's Ladder, an old packhorse route paved in stone, drops back to Upper Booth and an easy return along the valley.

    If it is coming down sideways: Grindsbrook's plateau in low cloud is a navigation problem, not an adventure, so a poor forecast is better met by bringing the Castleton day forward instead.

  3. Day 3

    Castleton, and a change of pace

    Edale's own station puts Hope, and from there Castleton, within an easy morning's reach without a car. Cave Dale opens directly behind the village church, a dry limestone gorge that narrows to barely a path's width beneath Peveril Castle's walls, steep and rocky enough to earn its moderate grading despite a distance of only six kilometres.

Where to stay for this trip

All within a short drive of Edale, so the day plans above still work.

Booking through these links earns a commission. The price is the same.