The Great Ridge (Mam Tor to Lose Hill)

The Great Ridge is a 5.1-mile out-and-back from Mam Nick Car Park, climbing to Mam Tor before following the skyline over Hollins Cross and Back Tor to Lose Hill. The stored route covers the core ridge and retraces the same way; it does not add the longer Castleton or Cave Dale loops that are sometimes sold under the same name. Allow about four hours with stops. The published core walk has roughly 1,200 feet of ascent.

The opening climb is short but steep, on stone-pitched steps and a good, obvious path. Mam Tor's trig point and Iron Age hillfort earthworks are the first big payoff. From there, the ridge path is mostly laid with flagstones, with open views into Edale on one side and the Hope Valley on the other. Hollins Cross is the low saddle and a meeting point for several paths. The brief rise over Back Tor is the rockiest, steepest part; the footing is uneven, and the ridge has almost no shelter when the wind is up. Lose Hill ends the outward leg with a cairn and compass marker. Turn around there rather than following a Castleton descent: that is a different walk.

The ridge separates the darker gritstone country from the paler limestone of the White Peak. Mam Tor means “Mother Hill”; it is also called the Shivering Mountain because unstable shale keeps the eastern face moving. The old road below the hill was abandoned after repeated landslips, and its broken line is part of the view from the summit. Heavy footfall once widened and eroded the ridge. A 2021 repair reused roughly 550 flagstones reclaimed from a local mill, a small physical link to the mill workers whose access campaign helped shape the national right-to-roam movement.

Mam Nick is a very small paid car park and can fill by around 9am on busy weekends, so an early start matters more for parking than for navigation. There is no food, water service or toilet found on this route; save cafés and pubs in Castleton for a separate stop. Keep dogs on leads around livestock. For the best phone photo, stop on the crest around Back Tor and include the flagstone path in the foreground with Mam Tor receding behind you. The broad views are the point of the walk, but they depend on the weather; wet or icy slabs and the rocky Back Tor rise deserve extra care.