The Kinder Plateau

The ground here

The Kinder plateau is a blanket peat bog sitting on top of a gritstone massif, mostly above 550 metres and almost entirely without trees. The peat is deep — several metres in places — and it is cut by a network of erosion channels called groughs. A grough is what happens when water running off a flat peat surface concentrates into a channel, cuts down through the peat to the rock beneath, and then widens. Some of them are two metres deep and wide enough to fall into.

The practical consequence is that the plateau is not flat. It is a maze of peat hags and groughs at roughly the same scale as a person, with no landmarks, and in low cloud it is one of the most disorienting places in England.

The route

Most people come up from Edale by Jacob's Ladder and the path along the edge. That route is a good walk with views the whole way and it is not this cache. This cache is on the plateau top, which means at some point you leave the path and navigate.

The approach from the north, down from the edge path and across the plateau, is the shorter line. The approach from the south, up through the grough system, is longer and wetter but easier to navigate because you can follow the groughs uphill. Both work. The northern line is the one to use in winter, because it crosses less deep peat.

Find the stake

The cache is tied to the underside of a peat hag two metres west of an iron stake. The stake is a fence post relic, roughly a metre of angle iron standing out of the peat, and it is visible from about thirty metres on a clear day.

From the stake, walk two metres west. You will see a peat hag — an isolated block of peat standing proud of the eroded surface, with a gap under its overhanging edge. The container is in that gap, tied with cord to the root mass, not buried.

Put it back exactly where it was. Peat hags collapse if you stand on them, and a collapsed hag is a lost hiding place.

Navigation and safety

This is the part that matters.

• There is no phone signal on the plateau. None.
• The plateau has no shelter of any kind. Wind chill at 600 metres in a wet jacket is the real risk here, not the terrain.
• Do not cross a full grough above knee depth. The water is peat-stained, cold, and the bottom is uneven.
• The plateau is a blanket bog with active erosion and restoration work in places. Do not walk on bare peat where the surface is cracking; use the vegetated routes.

After the find

Kinder Downfall, the plateau's western edge, is a waterfall that blows upward in a strong west wind — worth the walk if the wind is up. The edge path back toward Edale gives you the whole Vale of Edale and is the best finish available on this hill.