We woke up to the sound of wind wrapping around the tentbox. Howling, rain smacking the roof of the tent. Rob and I laid quietly listening. After some time, drifting in and out of sleep rose. The wind had died rain died down, enough to leave the tent without being soaked, at least. We climbed down, whisked the water off of the tent and began packing our daypacks. The clouds broke as we made our way to the Mam Nick Carpark ready for the days hike.
The Mam Tor Circular route offers some of the most spectacular views of the entire Peak District. In this blog post, I walk through a step by step of the Mam Tor Circular walk, a short, easy hike best taken early morning or late afternoon.
Quick facts
Mam Tor means Mother Hill and is located just outside of the town of Castleton. Mam Tor is an ancient site, having homed a community of Celtic people around 3,000 years ago, The Summit is home to one of the Peak Districts "Trig points" and is a relatively easy walk from the National Trust Carpark. Mam Tor stands around 517M above sealevel and has been marked an "excellent toddler walk" by the National Trust. The carpark gets busy early so make sure you arrive in good time, go to the bathroom before you leave the house though- you won't find one near the starting point of this hike!
Elevation Gain: 118M Length of trail: 3KM
The Circular walk begins in the carpark of Mam Nick, which you will need to pay a small fee for. We paid for around 4 hours which was plenty of time. From here, you will climb to a fence and make your way up to the first gate. Here there will be a National Trust sign post. Once you are through the gate, keep following the path along keeping left. As you climb, the path will remain visible, offering stone and cobbled steps which eventually plateau as you get towards the top. Whilst this part of the climb isn't difficult by any stretch of the word, the views do become more dramatic. Take time to take in the views.
Continue along the ridge path towards the summit. The path is clearly marked and the views get better and better as you continue your way. There's a trig point to mark the summit. From here, you can either make your way back or continue your walk along the ridge. We chose to continue along the ridge. The ridge will take you past another monument as you continue to climb higher again.
Once you get to the top of the ridge, make your way back down to the right hand side down the hill. You'll need to cross another gate, go past this and follow the path towards the trees. The path will fork, you'll want to take the path that veers towards the road. We continued for a while along the path, which was boggy from the rain the night before. We slipped slided and made our way to a broken path/ road, which was caused in a landslide. We spent a bit of time here snapping at the black cliffs and looking over to the Blue John Caves. Once you pass this point, you'll end up towards the carpark back where you started.
The route took us around 3/4 hours once we included all the time we spent photographing. and stopping for stacks.
Tired and weary, we made our way back to the car after an afternoon's walk. We made our way towards Ladybower reservoir for a much more relaxed afternoon walk and pub dinner. However, for those of you who have the energy, Wintass Pass is close by and a fantastic afternoon walk for sunset.
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