Our (mis)adventures in the Peak District

Lyle and I headed to the Peak District this weekend for a hike. The Peak District was the UK's first national park in 1951. It consists of the Dark Peak (where we went), which is largely uninhabited moorland and gritstone escarpments, and the White Peak, which is where most settlements, farmland and limestone gorges are located.

Baaa. We saw lots of grazing animals.

We were planning to do a 9-mile loop that brought us to Stanage Edge ("stone edge"), a popular place for rock climbers, and which also features in a scene from my favorite movie, Pride & Prejudice. (The Keira Knightley version. Don't even try to tell me the BBC one is better.) Also, we didn't know it at the time, but in looking up a few things for this entry, it turns out we were all around where parts of The Princess Bride were filmed too.

The day started out great. It's about a 1 hr 45 min train ride (one change in Sheffield) to Hathersage, the village where we were starting out. Two tickets with our railcard were £24.

 The weather was crisp, and the scenery was lovely.

The pictures don't do it justice.

Not long along the first path, we were met with sweeping lush, green views. I told Lyle I wanted to live here, and he said sure, as long as we weren't working. Obviously. All my dream-life fantasies involve me not working.

We passed by North Lees Hall, which is believed to be the inspiration for Mr. Rochester's home in Jane Eyre. It didn't really seem that inspirational to me, but who am I to argue with Charlotte Brontë.

I guess you could lock your mad wife in one of those rooms...

First glimpse of Stanage Edge

We kept going and eventually made it to Stanage Edge. We walked all along the trail, looking for the set of rocks that would match the ones from the movie, so I could recreate this guy's photo, but we weren't able to pick them out.

Somewhere along here, I suppose.

At every outcropping, I would say,
"This could be it! Maybe. I don't know..."

In the end, this is as close as we got.

Nevertheless, the views were amazing, it was quite chilly up there, and we saw lots of rock climbers. We even found a fully-loaded backpack belonging to one left near the edge. We went through it looking for an ID, scared that it belonged to someone who had had an accident. Luckily the owner came up (after we had poked through the bag) and claimed it. We told him we were glad he wasn't dead.

The very definition of heather moorland.

After leaving Stanage Edge to complete the rest of the loop, things got a little trickier. We took the wrong path for a couple miles, growing increasingly unsure as we were unable to find the next turn-off we were meant to take. We should have been heading to the top of Higgor Tor (teachable moment: a tor is free-standing rock outcrop that rises abruptly from the surrounding smooth and gentle slopes of a rounded hill summit or ridge crest), and I could see what I hoped wasn't it off in the distance, across the valley. We asked some fellow hikers and they confirmed we were vastly off course.

So we headed down into the valley to summit Higgor Tor from a less ideal angle. We made it to the top and confirmed with some more friendly hikers (shout out to all the friendly hikers out there!) that we were finally where we were supposed to be. Unfortunately, at this point, we had surpassed 9 miles and were feeling a bit tired and dismayed at the miles left to go.

From the bottom of the valley, we were at the top of those rocks...

... and we were supposed to be at the top of those rocks over there.

Walking up Higgor Tor

Another beautiful view from the top.

But we had no choice, so on we went, walking 300 yards on a two-lane country road with no shoulders (someone at visitpeakdistrict.org should really take a look at their route suggestions, as this was the second road we were directed to walk down at our peril), walking down a track with rusted out creepy campers and getting a visit from Shadowfax to spur us on at the end.

Shadowfax, the lord of all horses

We made it back to town just in time to catch the 7:46 pm train. Luckily we had enough time to grab some Burger King in Sheffield where we changed trains because we weren't sure anything would be open to deliver to us when we got home at around 10 pm. (And I wasn't about to cook anything.)

I'm not sure I'll get Lyle back to the Peak District any time soon. I'm hoping in time he'll look at it as type II fun (miserable while it's happening, but fun when you look back on it), maybe once the soreness wears off. As for me, I think I'll stick to either out-and-backs or guided hikes from now on.