This was another of our YHA stays that we had booked. On this
occasion, we had booked the Castleton YHA which neither of us had ever
stayed at before and probably never will again.
We arrived on Friday evening in plenty of time and we were looking
forward to relaxing before the weekend walking but, plain and simple,
there were just too many unsupervised children running amuck in almost
every corner of the building for that to be possible.
The following morning we met up with some friends and started our
walk from the rear of the YHA, Loosehill Hall, and heading up the path
marked on the OS map towards Loosehill Farm.
From the farm, it is a steep climb up the side of Loose Hill to the
summit. The going was a little muddy at first, and we had to pick our
way up the hill weaving in and out of as many of the muddy bits as we
could.
There were plenty of others on this route today, and by the time we
reached the summit, there was a small queue of people waiting to take
their summit photos and relying on the people behind them in the queue
to take it for them!
But it was not long before we persuaded the people waiting behind us
to take our summit photo.
We then walked along the ridge to Back Tor, Lee had told us that we
were walking the route the wrong way around as the wind would be in our
faces and he was spot on. Fortunately, the wind was not too bad and did
not hinder our progress along the ridge.
Before long we were at Mam Tor (517m) and looking back along the
Great Ridge to Loose Hill. We didn’t linger here for too long because of
the wind but the views were good in every direction although we could
see some rain on the horizon.
We left Mam Tor and dropped down to the road and up the other side
along the path above Rush Up Edge to Lord’s Seat (550m) where we found a
spot out of the wind for lunch and a coffee.
After lunch, we continued along the path until it met with the Byway
and then the road before making our way, via the path alongside Rushup
Edge Farm, to Bull pit and then around the bottom of Eldon Hill.
We eventually found ourselves on the Limestone Way which we followed
to Cave Dale and then into Castleton.