Guide to High Peak walks - northern Peak District, England, UK

• Location
• Description
• Contents
• Introduction
• Sample Route
• Maps

This guide is the first part of a two-volume survey designed to balance the marvellous diversity and wealth of walking country contained in the Peak District National Park. These high peak walks encompass the Dark Peak moors of Black Hill, Bleaklow, Kinder Scout, the higher eastern edges and the annexed western gritstone uplands from Windgather to The Roaches.

The present area is characterised by great swelling moorland composed of sandstones and shales capped by a coarse gritstone, known as Millstone Grit, outcropping along plateau edges and scarps. Gritstone is pervious but a climatic quirk caused a thin impervious sedimentation to stop water penetration and triggered the formation of a thick blanket of peat over the Pennine uplands.

Twenty-two day-long walks and one linear challenge walk, carefully researched and described, offer walkers a practical and entertaining means of acquainting themselves with this popular moorland region. Each walk is designed to embrace particular localities, drawing on the contrasting qualities of each to sustain interest and develop an appreciation of the wild, dramatic and often shy beauty peculiar to this northern sector of Peakland. As circular walks they comply to no rigid form, walkers being at liberty to embellish the routes to suit their own inclinations.