[1] At Chinley Station, go over the footbridge and follow the way out sign. Continue ahead down Station Road and then go right onto Lower Lane. After a while, turn right when you come to a small parking area on the right side of the road, and follow the footpath sign across the bridge back over the railway, and then left up some steps. Continue along the path as it skirts around a recreation area - this will bring you out at Stubbin Lane. Turn left and then bear right up the hill. Almost immediately, turn right up a track signed Public Footpath.
(Due to severe path erosion, PLEASE use the Alternative Route below - until after November 2013).
Before you reach the top of the steep climb, after a style on the right, take the style on your left (SK039831). Continue on the path directly towards Cracken Edge. This path continues to the old quarry workings and joins a path coming in from the left. Continue forward, and then take the next path left, climbing directly up the hill to the top of Cracken Edge. Continue on this path along the top of Cracken Edge. This path will descend through the old quarry workings to meet the path at the end of the temporary closure (SK037838). Turn left onto the path.
Before you reach the top of the steep section, leave the track and go over the style on the right, and continue on a path above the track (you will have wonderful views over the Chinley Valley). Eventually the path returns to the track - go ahead to cross a stile - you shortly arrive at a small grassy plateau called the Naze (a local viewpoint).
[2] Follow the path left towards Cracken Edge. Normally you would continue on, then take the right hand path which climbs beneath Cracken Edge and eventually follow the hill's contour, and then continue through the quarry workings. But unfortunately that path is closed until November 2013.
(A) Cracken Edge has been extensively quarried for gritstone in the past as will be evidenced as you climb up towards the summit point at Chinley Churn, so named because of its likeness to a milk churn in shape. There are vertical stone faces created along the edge, banks of spoil divide a series of working areas, and extensive waste heaps built up as debris was tipped down the steep slope. As you proceed along there is winding gear below the footpath which was used to pull quarry wagons up and down an inclined plane below. There were also underground stone mines behind the faces, now mostly collapsed, although entrance approach routes between spoil-heaps retained by dry stone walls remain. From here you could climb Chinley Churn, but it is 451m high!
Looking back you see the Naze as a promontory whose shape gives it its name.
[3] The path eventually drops down past a farm on the right to bear right on the driveway from Hills Farm to Peep-a-Day Farmhouse. Keep ahead to meet the A624 (Chapel Road). Turn left along the roadside for a short while and take the first turn right (there is a footpath sign) onto a quarry road which climbs up past a disused quarry on your right. When you come to a junction, turn right up a bridleway, and then turn immediately left to ascend the Pennine Bridleway to the ridge. Continue on the path down, with a stream and wall on your right. Although there is no clear path, In a short while turn right off the track, opposite where the wall and stream bend right (or if conditions are wet, use alternative route below). Keeping above the stream until you descend right alongside a fence to a crossing over the stream into a field. Go down a steep path to the bottom left hand corner Cross the bridge, go through a gate and then right on a path (with a stone wall to your left) to enter a lane at Coldwell Clough.
If the grass is wet, descending in a zig zag pattern may be wise. Keep on the well defined Pennine Bridleway down to the valley bottom. Where the bridleway meets a track coming in from the right, turn right onto that track. Follow this track to rejoin the route at Coldwell Clough.
[4] Bear right up the lane, ignore turns to the right, and continue climbing for a considerable distance through Oaken Clough (which has good views of South Head on your right). When you get to the top, before a gate, look for Edale Cross on your left with a benchmark at 541m.
(B) Edale Cross marks the former junction of the three wards of the Forest of Peak: Glossop and Longdendale, Hopedale and Campagna. The first cross on the site may have been set up by the Abbots of Basingwerk Abbey to mark the southern boundary of their land, granted in 1157. The date of the current cross is unknown, although a plaque beside it claims it to be mediaeval. At some point it fell down, and was re-erected in 1810, when the date and initials JG, WD, GH, JH and JS were carved into it. These stand for John Gee, William Drinkwater, George and Joseph Hadfield and John Shirt, local farmers of the day who raised the cross.
Here you have 2 options:
If visibility looks bad on Kinder Edge (to the left) take the alternative route. Continue ahead to join the Pennine Way (as shown on the map) and go back to Edale down Jacob’s Ladder and Upper Booth - go left through farmyard and continue ahead on the Pennine Way until you reach Edale. Turn right at the Nags Head down to the station.
Otherwise turn left immediately after the Cross through a wall, and bear right on an indistinct path which angles up the hill to join the Penine Way path from the top of Jacob’s Ladder. In a short while, leave the Penine Way, taking the right fork (at the cairn), which leads along the southern edge of Kinder. After quite a time (past Noe Stool) the path becomes indistinct through peat groughs (eroded water courses), but follows the edge past the Pym Chair rocks on the left to the Wool Packs.
(C) The Wool Packs - formed from layers of harder and softer gritstone rock laid down 300 million years ago - have weathered to form what looks like a collection of zoo animals. It is said that Henry Moore came here for inspiration for his scultptures
Work your way through these, then after about 500m cross over a stream in a gully above Crowden Clough and resume the edge path until you come across an unusually shaped rock (like the the root of a tooth), keep this rock to your right and immediately bear left onto a stone flagged path (ignore the other flagged path to your right which leads to Grindslow Knoll). The path shortly joins with the path at the rim of Grindsbrook Clough.
[5] Descend into the clough (this is very steep and rocky with no obvious path, and it is best to start your descent from the right and stay to the right of the brook for all of the steep section of the descent). There are routes down both sides of the stream, and both are difficult under foot, until the route eventually enters a wood at a bridge and a gate.
The path is well defined as it returns to Edale, crossing the stream once more at a footbridge just before reaching the street going down through the village past the Old Nags Head public house. Continue down to the railway bridge just after the Ramblers public House, and the station is on the right.