The swiss have a term "Hausberg" for the local hill that you climb on a regular basis and mine is Mam Tor. Whether it's winter ascents of Mam Tor Gully, night walks for the space and the stars, running up the edge of the face from Blue John Mine or just a brief nip up after work for the sunset the "Shivering Mountain" has been an ever-present part of my life for the last two decades. I had climbed it plenty of times before that of course - it's one of the first hills I remember, at a point when I was small enough to not only be knocked over by the wind but actually blown along the ground. My dad grabbed me before I was pushed over the cliff. Mam Tor does seem to attract the wind more than any other of the local hills, possibly because the ridge does a kink at that point so it catches the main blast a bit more than its neighbours. A few years back the Mountain Rescue Team had to be called because somebody was refusing to let go of the trig point in case he was blown away. I suspect that crawling would have been ok but he wasn't prepared to do that.
Summit trig
Mam Tor is a hill that exists in two different worlds. On the one hand it's amongst the most popular hills in Britain, with pretty much no days when its summit is unvisited and busy days when ascents are in the thousands. It's a famous historic site with an Iron Age embankment (now part-eaten by the advancing cliffs) and over a hundred house platforms. The "Great Ridge" out to Lose Hill is perhaps the best known walk in the Peak, busy every day, and the main path is a stone-flagged motorway, frequented by all and sundry from eight to eighty.
Mam Tor Face in winter
On the other hand it's a connoisseurs winter climbing venue with an intimidating reputation. "Any fool can climb Everest but Mam Tor is Big Beef" as mountaineer Stephen Venables (pioneer of a new route on Everest) put it. Its reputation used to be such that only a few locals ventured onto the face in winter but in 2009 three well-known Sheffield climbers climbed it one night. I happened to be doing Mam Tor Gully the same night (it was my usual route home from work on snowy days) and talked to them at the bottom. They were expecting it to be a real epic and were then surprised how easy it was. Afterwards the grapevine did its thing and the floodgates opened.
Most people still stick to the Gully though, with logged ascents on UK Climbing now over 200, and many more unrecorded ones. I've done it over 30 times with various finishes and as with many winter routes the conditions can vary hugely. It's usually Grade I but the top can sometimes be quite high end for that grade.
Mam Tor Gully
You quite often do get some ice right at the bottom
Above that it feels like an actual gully for a while
At half height it opens out, with the rocky Blue John Rib on the right
In some conditions the slabby main face feels like the Eiger!
As it steepens it starts to feel high
There is often a cornice (the footprints on the left are mine)
The Gully isn't completely trivial though, as the cornice can be quite large and if the wind direction is right then the snow build up can be deep enough to avalanche. I found this out the hard way one morning after an overnight blizzard. I was far too blasé about it, thinking "it's only Mam Tor Gully". All went well until around thirty feet below the top, when a chunk of the cornice broke off and landed on the snow in front of me. It started to slide, but very slowly at first, so I thought I could push it round either side of me. I couldn't of course and was carried away as the whole slope headed off downwards. About thirty feet lower there was a turfy boss off to my left and as I passed it I was able to whack an axe securely into it and roll out of the flow. The avalanche carried on all the way down the gully and out onto the scree fan below.
The problem was what to do now? I obviously couldn't climb the unstable cornice above, and if I descended the gully I would be exposed to any further falls as I went through the narrow section. My only real option was to go up left to where the cornice shrank and eased to vertical. This took me out above the steep drop on the left edge of the face so felt quite exposed. Heart in mouth I kicked bucket steps up the vertical section hoping that the whole lot wasn't going to collapse. Eventually I was able to reach over the top with an axe, expecting to find some comforting frozen turf, or at least a bit of harder snow. No such luck. Solid ground was around eight feet away. Trying to weigh nothing I immersed the whole shaft of my axe in the snow, dug in my other arm up to the elbow and grovelled onto the top. There I sprawled my weight out as widely as I could and crawled the last few feet to the welcoming security of real ground. Phew!
Spare Rib, Mam Tor Gully, Blue John Rib, Central Route, Broad Rib, Weetabix Treadmill and the Sisters of Mercy
Mam Tor does scary very well, of course. Further right the main face has a web of routes, all a lot more serious than the Gully and on 'rock' that leaves a lot to be desired. The Weetabix Treadmill didn't get its name without good reason. The only routes I've done here are the three "Sisters of Mercy" on the far right edge. These are slightly easier-angled than most of the face but the base is shale so axe placements feel very insecure. From their top a short traverse left takes you into the Weetabix Treadmill. I had a look once but the desire for self preservation intervened and I scuttled off up the easy chimney further right.
The Weetabix Treadmill and Sisters of Mercy are just left of the RH rib
More than half of my ascents of Mam Tor have been at night. On days when Winnats Pass was blocked by snow (about half a dozen times a year) I would walk in to work carrying my winter climbing gear and go back via Mam Tor Gully and along Rushup Edge. You generally didn't need a torch as the light of the cement works was enough, and the reddish lustre made the face seem huge. A torch only illuminates the small area around you, but without one you got a real sense of being in the middle of a big cliff. I know it's only Derbyshire but the face is 500 feet high, big enough for me. One night in 2006 after a big dump of snow followed by a rapid thaw and an equally rapid overnight freeze the gully grew a 200 foot long streak of perfect water ice, the best conditions I've ever had in it. The next morning it had vanished without a trace, leaving me with a "did that really happen?" feeling.
Hope Valley from the top of the Gully
I've only met other people on Mam Tor at night a couple of times, other than on New Year's Eve, when there are usually at least fifty people on top by midnight. It's a great atmosphere, although this being the modern world everyone is on the phone by 12.15 (me included, of course). On quieter occasions I often nip up from the top car park if there's a clear night – I live so close that I once ran up and down within the half time break of a football match! I usually have to spend some contemplation time on the top though. Any competing light is well below you so there's a spangled dome of stars, and the lights down in the Hope Valley form a fantastic sprawling dragon shape. It even breathes fire every time a car drives up the hidden slot of the Winnats!
Photographing the cloud sea
The ease of access makes the summit a great sunrise spot, and on clear mornings there's usually a phalanx of photograpers stationed there. It's also a great viewpoint for looking out over the cloud seas which are a regular feature of the Hope Valley in winter. Recently though it seems to have been replaced in photographers' affections by the top of the Winnats, which is even more accessible and usually closer to the top of the cloud sea.
Cloud sea from the summit
On those inversion days the cloud generally rises during the day so by mid morning there's often cloud piling up not far below the summit, making for lots of Brocken Spectres, and sometimes even fog bows if a wall of cloud builds up to the north. To see them you have to detour from the main path as it keeps away from the steep slopes dropping away northwards and the summit itself is too broad. I love Brockens and always make a point of wandering over to look when conditions are right, but it's surprising how few people do. I guess that's why you get people saying "I've walked the hills all my life but never seen a Brocken Spectre" – they are far more common than many think. On one occasion the only other person who did wander over turned out to be a photographer who specialised in atmospheric effects. He'd even seen a lunar Brocken, which definitely made me jealous! While we were chatting over a hundred people walked past within fifteen yards, but not one came across to look.
Brocken Spectre
The classic view from the summit is eastwards along the ridge to Lose Hill, hence the attraction for sunrise-worshippers. It's even better when it's a snowy prow projecting out into the green of the valley.
Back Tor and Lose Hill from the summit
The view westwards is fine too though, especially at sunset. In early Spring the sun rolls into the side of Rushup Edge but stays close enough to the skyline to give the whole hill a yellow halo. All around you the ground glows orange and the low light brings out every ripple in the plateau to the south. It really emphasises the feeling of height and space to be sitting bathed in the glow while the dark eastlands below have already been claimed by the night's shadows.
Sunset behind Rushup Edge
The views of the hill can be good too, especially from the south-east, where you can either go for the roadside version or walk steeply up the far side of Cave Dale and get Peveril Castle as a foreground.
Mam Tor and Peveril Castle
In winter there are always threads on UK climbing from Sheffield or Manchester-based climbers asking about snow conditions on Mam Tor so on snowy days I used to put daily climbing conditions updates for Mam Tor and the Winnats onto Safariquip's facebook page. We had a good view of Mam Tor Face from the window by the kettle, and an even better one from a little gate just outside, while the Winnats was on my journey to work. In fact sometimes I even managed to climb a route on the way in. The long term result is that I now have a ridiculous number of photographs of that view.
"The view from the kettle"
It's not just photographers who love the place though, Mam Tor is a hill for everybody. For many in the Hope Valley it's "their" mountain and for lots of local kids it's the first hill they ever go up (for some it's perhaps the only one they ever do). For plenty of visitors from the cities around it's their favourite sunday stroll and for the more energetic it fits into classic longer rounds, whether it's just along the "Great Ridge" to Lose Hill or as part of the Edale Skyline or Derwent Watershed. A hill of character and a great place to have on your doorstep.
Peveril Castle and Mam Tor
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