Crowden Clough is always a fun day out for children, especially during a dry spell where they can climb the dried up waterfalls directly. My older two children, Sam and Luke, were visiting for the week and wanted to do something that involved a bit of climbing rather than simply walking. They’d both done Crowden Clough before and enjoyed it so I decided on a revisit.

The last time we did the route, we first ascended Grindsbrook before dropping down the western slopes of Grindslow Knoll to Crowden Clough. This time we decided to skip Grindsbrook and head straight to the excitement. We started at Edale and set off along the Pennine Way. It was a gloriously sunny day but there was still a bit of a chill in the air at the time of setting off.

The path follows a stream for a short while before reaching a fork. The right-hand fork heads up to Grindslow Knoll. The left hand is the Pennine Way and crosses pastureland – eventually ascending up to Kinder Scout via Jacob’s Ladder. We weren’t to go that far. At Upper Booth Farm, a bridge is crossed over Crowden Brook. The footpath that leads up Crowden Clough is immediately on the right.

The lower part of Crowden Clough is easy walking and, on a sunny day like this, extremely picturesque. It’s only in the higher section that it becomes a little more exciting with rock hopping, stream crossing, and waterfall climbing. For the less nimble, or for those just wishing to take things a little easier, a path on the left gradually climbs away from the clough and towards Crowden Tower just before the difficulties start.

The kids naturally had no intention of taking any easy option and they took their time, leaving no boulder unclimbed on their mission to the top. The climax of the route was a large steep waterfall. In wet weather, there’s usually far too much water coming down to climb directly. Instead, it’s usually ascended via the wall just to the left of the waterfall. This is how I’ve always tackled it before, but on this occasion we were lucky and the brook had dried up enough to allow the waterfall to be scrambled up directly.

Once up, there are a few smaller easier waterfalls to navigate before the top is reached – the top being the point where the Kinder edge path crosses.

Before continuing, we couldn’t help but notice the interesting large rock formation ahead. I hadn’t investigated this before so we decided to go and have a look. From a distance, it didn’t look particularly climbable for kids but, upon closer inspection, it was a nice little playground that kept the kids busy for another twenty minutes.

After finishing on the rocks, we headed back to the edge path and followed it east to Grindslow Knoll before taking the easy descent path back to Edale. By this time, the chill had totally disappeared from the air and we all felt like we were roasting. Sam had even taken his t-shirt off!