Do you have your sights set on a challenge walk this year?

If so, this blog series might just help you achieve your goal. I will be covering a famous challenge walk in the Dark Peak area of the Peak District National Park, called the ‘Gritstone Edges Challenge’, or sometimes also known as the ‘Nine Edges Trail’.

It’s not a way marked route, either on the map or the ground, which means that it helps to have either very good navigation skills, or to have walked the route in small sections multiple times before. I am combining both of those approaches, to break it down into short blogs to help you on your way.

According to Paul Besley, in his fantastic ‘Dark Peak Walks’ guidebook for Cicerone, this trail is 45km/28miles long and could take 13 hours. That’s a big distance for a day walk. My intention is to hike it there and back, making a multi-day camping trip out of it this coming summer. But first, I want to minimise the navigation time by getting to know the route really well. How to do that then?

Well, by scoping out sections using short circulars, a lot of knowledge can be built up. I tend to do a lot of ‘scoping out’ during the winter months, usually in fairly miserable and cold weather, because that way I really gain confidence with my abilities to handle anything during May/June/July. For this trail, I am splitting it into four manageable circulars. This also gives me a good overview of ‘escape’ points should I need these for an emergency when it comes to the real deal, because I’ll be planning safe routes off the trail to get back to various starting points. Although a process like this takes longer, in my opinion it’s really worth it because there’s much less stress involved when it comes to actually hiking the trail. You get to enjoy simply walking a lot more – and that’s what you want really, right?

The first circular, in my next blog, takes you from Fairholmes to the unfortunately-named ‘Cutthroat Bridge’ via Derwent Edge, and then back to the visitor centre again.