Pennine Way Day 1 - Edale to Crowden

Saturday 26th June 2021

Pennine Way Day 1 - Edale to Crowden (Torside Reservoir)

The official Pennine Way begins in Edale, next to the Old Nags Head pub and starts relatively easy, that is until you reach the bottom of Jacob’s Ladder, then it’s uphill all the way to Edale Rocks and the Kinder plateau.

After walking past Kinder Low trig point, then on to Kinder Downfall the path descends to Mill Hill before heading across flagstoned moorland to the Snake Pass Road. Then it's Bleaklow Moor and Clough Edge before reaching todays destination - Torside Reservoir.

The crossing of Bleaklow is made much easier these days due to the use of stone slabs, reclaimed from the demolition of local cotton mills - This was a feature often repeated throughout the first few days of the southern section of the Pennine Way. Mile after mile of perfectly laid paths, it must of been one significant undertaking.

Our first taste of the Pennine Way and you could tell it wasn't going to be a walk in the park.

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Distance: 15.9 miles

Duration: 6:30 hours

Ascent: 2816 ft

Difficulty: Moderate/Hard

Accompanied By: Davy, Rob & Arch

Weather: Dry & Fine

3D outline of route

Parking

The actual start of the Pennine Way - The Old Nag's Head, well we took our starting photos further up the lane at the first signposts.

Here we go, a few snapshots at the Pennine Way wooden direction post first - then we found this nice Pennine Way plaque. Well - it does say the 'Official start to the Pennine Way'

Grindsbrook Booth

Approaching Upper Booth with views of Horsehill Tor up ahead

The small stone bridge at the the start of the climb up Jacobs Ladder - We were very surprised as to how many people were walking today, it was a fine Saturday after all and also the easing of lockdown probably contributed - As it was, this was the busiest it ever got on the whole walk.

Here we go !

Jacobs Ladder a nice way to stretch your calves at the beginning of a long walk - 10 to 15 mins of hard work

Looking back down towards Edale and the route of the path

Edale Rocks !!

Kinder Low Trig Point

Lunch with a view

Approaching Kinder Downfall

Looking West towards Kinder Reservoir (Going to see a lot of reservoirs over the next week !)

The top at Kinder Downfall

Mill Hill crossroads ahead - straight on boys, another climb coming up

Straight on at Mill Hill/Snake Path Crossroads

Crossing the busy A57 near Snake Pass

The mighty atom (aka Rob) takes over at the front and cracks on at 4mph - Bleaklow was over and done in no time, unfortunately so were Archie's feet ! The stone slabs are a familiar sight for anyone walking the Pennine Way; introduced to solve the problems of erosion caused by decades of walkers traversing the soft, peaty land. They certainly make life easy, the thought of covering all these miles through soft boggy terrain was daunting - although they do make for a tough time on your feet. Not much soft, gentle walking across grassy terrain on this stretch.

Leaving the bleakness of Bleaklow and starting to descend towards Torside Clough

Torside Clough with the reservoir ahead

Davy, unintentionally and very briefly, investigated the possibility of a much quicker route down Clough Edge

The descent towards Torside reservoir

Old Glossop for the night out (pretty good place actually) - Best Indian I've ever had at the Queens Arms - One to check out, plus excellent real ales to have with your meal rather than that Kingfisher lager rubbish.

Windy Harbour (Padfield) - our place for the night. Special thanks to Lee for picking us up from Torside and also dropping Rob & Arch off at the Queens Arms. Shame about the sandwiches though ! Not good.