The Nine Edges has become quite well known as a hill run, with or without the added challenge of including a climb or two on each edge, but as a walk I feel it's improved by starting at the Cut Gate track to make a full end to end of the Derwent Valley escarpment. This adds roughly another 5 miles and a minor amount of extra uphill, making a total of 25 miles and 3000 feet. Having done shorter versions of it plenty of times I finally got round to doing the whole thing in one go last year. I had planned to do it with various others, enabling a car at each end but after dates had failed to align a few times I was starting to need to get it done while I still physically could. I decided just to do it solo and get a taxi back from the Robin Hood to Kings Tree. The road alongside the upper reservoirs is closed at weekends so it had to be a midweek jaunt in order to be able to leave my car at the top end and still get back to it that evening.
Winter light!
The weather took a while to play ball, but eventually there was a day when the moors weren't going to be saturated or snowy and the forecast was reasonable until around sunset. It was mid February so I was probably going to finish in the dark, but the paths in the southern half are all good so this wasn't going to be a problem, just an added bit of adventure. Actually a sunrise start would have got me a daylight finish but I'm not an early morning person. I'm ok with early starts if the aim is just to go up to see the sunrise, but if I began a long walk by feeling tired it was going to slow me enough to be counterproductive. Besides, I wanted to actually enjoy it!
Howden Reservoir, the start, on a calmer day
In the end I started walking from the top of the Howden road just after 9.30. It was windy and the sun hadn't got down to the bottom of the dale yet so things felt decidely raw. A few snow spitters reminded me of the date. It wasn't a day for hanging around so I was soon heading up the Cut Gate track, the old packhorse route over to Langsett, and by 10 o'clock had gained enough height to come out into the sunshine. The increased height meant increased wind so it didn't help much!
Slippery Stones
Once on the top I swung right to the trig point on Margery Hill, slightly back from the edge proper but I felt I had to include it. Having done the northwards loop I was at least now heading in the right direction! Cutting across to the top of the scarp the peat had eroded back from the edge leaving a grassy strip which made for easy walking along Howden Edge. At the south end of this Abbey Brook cuts deeply into the moor and there are a few different ways of getting across to the other side, all boggy and with only traces of path. Longest but easiest (and with the most path) is to leave Howden Edge at its highest point and swing all the way 'inland' over Round Hill to join the Dukes Road track coming up from Agden. Shortest but most brutal is to go straight down and up to cross Abbey Brook and pick up the track onto Lost Lad, while the intermediate route is to cross Featherbed Moss and follow the grassy strip down Crook Clough, with a pathless ascent to reach the built track. On this occasion I went for the third of these, easy going until the rough pull up Cartledge Bents.
Kestrel, Derwent Edge
Reaching the Dukes Road was another major landmark, as now I knew I had good paths all the way, and I was soon up on Back Tor. So far this had been the limit of my southward view but I could now look down Derwent Edge and see my route ahead. The south end of Stanage looked a long way away and Froggatt/Curbar an unimaginable distance. Gulp.
Derwent Edge, with Stanage looking a long way away!
I had contemplated following the watershed over Strines Edge but this is largely pathless heather and I really like Derwent Edge so followed the main track past White Tor and the Wheel Stones. I hadn't met anybody in the first two hours but even on a Thursday in February there were plenty of people out along the edge. Just before the wonderfully-named Hurkling Stones a good path cuts left to slant down to the Strines Road and the A57. A few hundred yards of roadside gets you to Moscar and a gentle ascent to Stanage End.
Stanage Edge
Stanage is very much my home ground. I've been going there since childhood and used to live in Hathersage, so I've had several hundred climbing sessions on it and done nearly 900 of its 1500-odd routes, many of them dozens of times. Some climbers get a bit sniffy about Stanage because of its popularity - it accounts for one in every 16 of all the climbs logged on UKClimbing, and 16 of the 20 most climbed routes are there. Very few crags in Britain have such a concentration of quality routes though, with the best being as good as any outcrop routes anywhere. There are hardly any not worth doing (though of course it has its share of gap-fillers). A Scottish climber I know, who had previously been disparaging about it, recently went there for the first time and came away a convert, admitting that they were amazed how good the climbing was.
Stanage Edge
I resisted the temptation to solo a route or two - I had deliberately left my rock boots behind as I knew I would be lured in, and really needed the time. Although it was sunny it was still pretty cold in the wind and nobody was climbing with a rope, although as always the sheltered Plantation boulders were busy. The only person on the edge itself was well-known Irish climber Niall Grimes, and even he was round on the far end where it swings round to face south.
Burbage North
Across the Ringinglow road I made good time round the top of the Burbage Valley, along the top of the North and South Edges, then dropped in to the Fox House for the loo and a pint. This was probably a mistake as it was the first time I started to feel tired. Even the easy stroll through Longshaw seemed hard work, until the low winter sun lighting up Carl Wark and Higgar Tor livened me up again.
Higgar Tor from Longshaw
Passing the now walled up Froggatt Barn brought back memories of dossing in it on climbing trips back in the late 80's/early 90's. As it was close to both pub and crags it was very popular at weekends. A brief up and down led to the flat walk along the top of Froggatt, but my legs were telling me that I'd come a long way. The light effects off to the west were a good distraction though.
"....a good distraction"
Crossing the crest at the north end of Curbar was another landmark, with a gentle descent afterwards to the rapidly emptying car park at Curbar Gap. As well as getting dark it was now drizzling gently so I cut across past the Eagle Stone rather than going out to the end of Baslow Edge. Reputedly Baslow lads had to climb this before they were allowed to marry, though given that climbers have never had a reputation as dependable pillars of society I'm not sure what that was supposed to prove 😄.
Baslow Edge from Curbar Edge
Although it was well after sunset the paths are so good that I didn't need a head torch until I went back out onto the moorland behind Gardom's Edge. This section of path is pretty boggy and despite the snow showers earlier it wasn't frozen, and I had to wander around a bit to avoid being ensnared. It wouldn't have felt right to miss out the trig point on Birchen Edge, so on reaching the scrubby birch woodland at the saddle I cut off the path to go up onto the skyline. In the dark the route up wasn't obvious, but if I held the torch in my hand as opposed to having it on my head I could still get a sense of the shape of the landscape.
The path up onto Birchen in daylight
From the trig it was easy walking underfoot along the top of the Edge, with a moon somewhere behind the clouds, but the steep descent into the woods at the end needed care. From there it was back onto the pedestrian motorway and I was soon at the Robin Hood. It was 6.20, and I had arranged with a local taxi for a lift at 7/7.30 ish. I had said that I would give him an hour's notice, so the timing was perfect, giving me plenty of time for food and a pint in the pub. Strangely the taxi driver had never been up to the end of the reservoir road before, despite being born and bred locally. He was quite taken with it, planning to come back in daylight with his wife. I got home about 9pm, so a bit over 12 hours door to door, while the actual walk had taken 8 hrs 45 mins, about an hour under the Naismith time. As a decrepit old codger I was quite pleased with that. A great day out, one of my best days of last year.
Stanage from Little John's Step
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