THE ROACHES 505M
FANTASTIC WALK FOR SCRAMBLING, ROCK CLIMBING AND BOULDERING
The Roaches and Hen Cloud summits
PEAK DISTRICT
PARKING-UPPER HUMLE LEEK ST13 8UB RPAD SIDE PARKING
MILES- 3-4 MILES APPROX
ASCENT- 200M
FACILITIES- NON ON ROUTE
TERRAIN-SOME STONE PITCHED PATHS, MOORLAND, BOG AND WELL TRODDEN PATHS
The Roaches is in the Peak District gem; The impressively rugged and steep stone ridge is home to mythical mermaids and is natural gritstone clefts, which is popular with professional rock climbers
It groups together two main gritstone outcrops, 'Ramshaw Rocks' famous for the 'Winking Man' rock formation and 'Hen Cloud' .
We picked a day that was extremely busy, in fact it took 1.5 hours to find a parking space, we drove up and down this road waiting for someone to move, the roadside parking runs along the road at the base of The Roaches, there is a cafe in walking distance and sometimes a Ice cream van.
After parking follow the footpath and climb steadily to the col. You reach a cross path linking Hen Cloud to the right with the Roaches on your left, we went to Hen cloud first which was a gentle clime up with some rocky outcrops.
We returned back to the col and followed the path up to the The Roaches plateau, we stopped in sections for the kids to climb on the rocks before we continued along the summit to the trig point, every time we find a walk that includes rock climbing its always windy so the kids have to stay low on the rocks and today was one of those exceptionally windy days.
It was still a great day and another we will head back too maybe during the week when its less busy.
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