Blackden Brook Scramble

One of the classic scrambling walks in the Peak District, with an adventurous start, followed by a continuous scramble with some alternative endings that can take it to a higher grade.

Grade: 1 (alternate endings up to Grade 3).

The Route
After parking on the Snakes Pass, take the route marked by the National Trust sign posts, crossing the River Ashop, following into Blackden Brook.

The path can get narrow as you move along the brook, so you will need to keep crossing over to make progress upwards.

Not always the easiest route along the brook, but there is some fantastic scenery, including waterfall!

Scrambling & Alternative Finishes
As you scramble up the main route, if you look to the left you will see multiple alternative finishes, one of which is this gully, which looks very impressive when looking from the main route.

The scrambling is fairly easy on the main line, where you will eventually reach the top and Seal Stones.

The Loop Finish
If you want to descend via a different route, then follow the path left (eastwards) along the edge of Kinder Scout.

Finding The Descent Line
The start of the descent is a little hard to navigate to, it isn’t signposted and it definitely isn’t a path. It follows a broken stream down onto a slope above where you start the walk.

If you keep an eye to your left on the smaller ridge below Kinder Scout, which is located just above the ascent line, you can walk until you are almost parallel, and you will notice these small lines running off the edge of Kinder downwards.

Following one of the latter of these lines you will work your way down a broken stream, until it flattens out.

From here look for the obvious gap in the land, which follows a broken wall down to the start of your route.