Best trail runs in the Peak District

The Peak District packs in an extraordinary range of terrain — gritstone edges in the Dark Peak, limestone dales in the White Peak, and miles of open moorland in between. These routes cover the best of it.

19routes
VERY HARD
The Grand Edale Circular
28.7km · 1,344m climb · Loop
The full Peak District experience — deep peat bog, gritstone edges, and those big Kinder views. Earn the ridge on the way back in.
VERY HARD
Edale, Mam Tor, Win Hill and Derwent Dam from Ladybower
29.9km · 1,207m climb · Loop
The Dark Peak's greatest hits in one loop - the Great Ridge, Edale, Win Hill's summit view down the Hope Valley - linked up so you never have to double back on yourself.
VERY HARD
Edale Skyline
29.5km · 861m climb · Loop
You spend almost the whole loop on the skyline itself, linking gritstone edges and summits with the Edale valley dropping away below you the entire way round.
VERY HARD
Burbage, Stanage Edge and Higger Tor from Grindleford
24.0km · 711m climb · Loop
You can get here by train and step off the platform onto the route. Four of the best gritstone edges in the country in one loop, with Higger Tor and Carl Wark saved for 19km in when your legs are already talking.
VERY HARD
Stanage Edge and Robin Hood's Cave from Ecclesall Woods
24.6km · 568m climb · Loop
A genuine city-to-gritstone-and-back run. You leave a suburban car park, touch the Stanage trig and Stanedge Pole, and come home through the Porter Valley without ever getting in a car.
HARD
The Roaches and Lud's Church
12.4km · 539m climb · Loop
Two of the most distinctive bits of the whole Peak District back to back. The Roaches ridge has proper exposure and Lud's Church is one of those places that makes you stop and look twice.
Checked Jun 2026
HARD
Mam Tor and the Great Ridge
12.6km · 502m climb · Loop
You run the entire Great Ridge end to end, a paved skyline with the Hope and Edale valleys falling away on either side, then loop through Castleton beneath the caves and old road.
VERY HARD
Kinder Scout from Hayfield
13.9km · 469m climb · Loop
You get onto the highest ground in the Peak District on a route steeped in access history, with the plateau edges giving fast, airy running once you are up.
EXPERT
White Peak Six Dales Loop
42.5km · 442m climb · Loop
You connect a whole run of limestone dales in one loop, swapping the gritstone moors of the Dark Peak for clear rivers, green valleys and dry-stone-walled plateau.
HARD
Black Hill and Crowden Little Brook Loop
14.4km · 426m climb · Loop
Black Hill's peat-black plateau feels as remote as anywhere in the Peak, and the return along the edge above Laddow Rocks is some of the best moor-edge running in the north.
VERY HARD
Bleaklow Head and Torside Clough from Torside Reservoir
16.9km · 425m climb · Loop
You get a flat 5km warm-up, one long honest climb onto some of the emptiest peat in England, and then four kilometres of clear, fast descending along the lip of Torside Clough with the reservoir laid out below you.
HARD
Marsden 10 Mile Challenge
16.4km · 357m climb · Loop
It is the whole of Marsden Moor in one loop - Wessenden, Standedge and the reservoir chain - on ground that carries centuries of packhorse and canal history, and you can run it door to door from the train.
HARD
Easter Gate, March Haigh and Black Moss Reservoirs
16.8km · 349m climb · Loop
You string together three reservoirs and a stretch of the Pennine Way on quiet moor tracks, with the whole of Marsden Moor opening out around you and almost nobody else about.
HARD
Langsett to Margery Hill and High Stones
18.3km · 343m climb · Loop
You start on an easy reservoir track through pine woods and end up on the remotest tops in the county, at High Stones and Margery Hill, with the Howden and Derwent moors rolling away empty in every direction.
HARD
Stairway to Heaven from Wessenden
13.8km · 342m climb · Loop
The stepped pull out of Wessenden that gives the route its name delivers you straight onto the roof of the moor, with the whole reservoir valley dropping away behind you in one go.
MODERATE
Win Hill and Ladybower Loop
13.1km · 282m climb · Loop
Win Hill's summit is a bare gritstone knuckle with one of the widest views in the Dark Peak - Kinder, the Derwent moors and the whole Hope Valley at once - for a climb you can fit into a morning.
VERY HARD
Derwent Dam and Ladybower Dam Circuit
24.3km · 165m climb · Loop
Nearly 25km of genuinely runnable, mostly traffic-free trail with almost no climbing - this is where to go in the Peak District when you want distance in your legs, not vertical.
VERY HARD
Holme Moss to Snailsden and Britland Edge Hill
10.4km · 155m climb · Loop
It packs a genuine sense of wilderness into ten kilometres - trackless peat, two rarely-visited tops and the huge radio mast of Holme Moss as your landmark all the way round.
MODERATE
Torside to Woodhead Tunnels via the Longdendale Trail
10.2km · 51m climb · Out & back
It is a rare flat, fast run in the Dark Peak - a traffic-free old railway line running dead level past four reservoirs to the great stone mouths of the Woodhead tunnels.

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