Where I Parked
Parking for this Edale Skyline challenge + is pretty straightforward. However, I feel as though it’s not a lockdown or not a weekday. The car park could and often does fill up quite quickly. You will be able to find a spot eventually if you be patient. The car park is called Barber Booth Car Park.
The Edale Skyline Challange
We started the challenge by walking along the road towards Upper Booth Farm Campsite. This has the gate to the footpath, where this hike begins properly. Once you arrive at the farm, walk straight into it and head towards the correct way. We had to go through a gate. We made sure to close it behind us and every gate throughout the hike.
The start of this hike was in full sun, which was lovely! We followed this path until we had to turn left – just before reaching New Fold Farm (There is a signpost, so we knew where we had to turn). We then headed up the side of the mountain.
The hike straight up the hill was a little bit steep. We then came to a turning point where we went around the back and could see Grindslow Knoll. From this point, we began to see all the fantastic views. Once at the top of Grindslow Knoll, we went across the top, then round to the back of it, and turned right, starting the Skyline part of the 30-mile charity hike.
Here we had a little bit of snow starting to fall. Little did we know that this would completely change the whole dynamic of the hike. The snow didn’t last for too long. It stopped before we descended the field along the path towards Win Hill. However, I’ll get back on track. We walked along the way, scrambling over rocks, through two ravines, and along the edge of the skyline before the descent started.
Walking down the fields, we had our first brief stop to get some liquid and food. It was here (7.5 miles ish) that one of my mates started to see a problem with his feet (which was not something you want to happen this soon into a 30-mile hike.) He wrapped them up, and we carried on. Walking up to Win Hill, it started getting a bit busier, which is usually annoying, but it wasn’t much of an issue as we didn’t plan to stay up here for long. We just walked straight over it and down into the forest, where we checked our map and turned right. We continued to follow the fields, and over a few stiles, we got to the road we had to follow for quite a while.
On this road, we had our second stop (12.5 miles ish). My mate had to see how his feet were doing. They were not looking good at all and continued following the road into Hope and turning right just before the Spar the following this until we got to the gate that would lead us to Loose Hill. At around halfway up Loose Hill, the snow picked up massively. It came out of nowhere – we were in a whiteout, so we put on coats, hats and any extra layers we needed. Unfortunately, this was where my mate’s feet became a big problem for him and getting to the top of Loose Hill was a bit of a struggle.
Section 2
Tom and I hiked up to Loose Hill peak without any problem. However, the mate who was having trouble with his feet took quite a bit longer. We had to get food and wait for him to appear in the snow. He eventually did, but we could see he was in quite a pain. At this point, he decided that he wouldn’t be able to complete the challenge, but he still had to carry on with us over the great ridge to Hollins Cross before he could start descending back into Edale and then to his car.
Now that we were over Hollins cross and we were a man down, we had a long, gradual incline walk up to the Mam Tor summit. The second-highest point on this hike (517m/1696ft). The snow clouds had started to move across, which was suitable for the time being. As it turned out, we would reencounter them soon. As usual, The Mam Tor summit was quite busy, so we didn’t stay here for long either. We just walked straight over it and down to the road.
It was a reasonably calm walk from hearing onto Brown knoll, and not much happened, so I don’t have much to write about this section other than the snow started to become quite deep, snow and we knew that the rest of the hike was going to be in quite deep snow. It was ankle-deep until we got into Edale, but ill get more into that in a paragraph or two.
Section 3
We carried on to the highest point of this hike, the Kinder Low Trig Point (633m/2077ft). Here the sky was blue, and the snow was deep. I love a snowy walk, especially with the bonus of seeing where I was going a bit better than we could beforehand. As we needed to complete the 30 miles, we didn’t have long to go. We kept on walking back towards Grindslow Knoll.
Going along here is where I messed up; it had just started snowing again. We couldn’t see, so we took out our phones to check the maps to figure out what path we were supposed to take. I put my phone in my pocket and walked along the path, and about 1km later, I noticed that my phone had gone. We did go back and tried to trace our steps for a short while to find them. It must have been covered in snow, as we had no luck. We just had to persevere with the hike. Once back at Grindslow knoll, we started our descent.
Instead of turning right and taking the same path back to the car, we went straight into the centre of Edale. We then followed the road back to the car park. We were just short of the 30-mile mark, so we had to carry on for a bit, then turn around on ourselves, where we finished the hike at 30.44 miles or 49.10km.
MY OPINION
The Edale Skyline challenge hike was fun, and I need to get more long walks done soon. I particularly loved that we ended up having quite deep snow for parts of it and blue skies in other parts. 30.44 Miles completed in 10:16:49. It could have been quicker, but due to looking for my phone made my time longer. All in all, I would recommend giving this challenge a go. Not necessarily the full 30, but any peak district hiker should complete the Edale skyline at some point.
I am so happy with how this event went, apart from losing my phone. I raised a staggering £543 for Just Drop-In Charity in Macclesfield. The charity and I are delighted with this amount raised. It was more than my target by £297.
MY RATINGS
- Difficulty 4/5
- Enjoyment 4/5
- Views 3.5/5
- Overall 4/5
To see more photos and live updates of my hikes, check out my Instagram @outdoorascent.
