Bleaklow Head and Torside Clough from Torside Reservoir

The route

Start at Torside car park below the dam and pick up the Longdendale Trail heading east. The first 5km are the easy part: a level old railway line along the north side of Torside and Woodhead reservoirs, gaining barely 60m and giving you time to loosen off. You pass the mouth of Wildboar Clough at around 3km and keep going towards the head of the valley at Woodhead.

Onto Bleaklow

The route leaves the trail at Black Clough and turns southwest onto the moor. From here it is a sustained 6km pull of a little over 350m onto the Bleaklow plateau. There is a path for parts of it and nothing much for others. Above about 500m the ground turns to peat hag and grough, and the last kilometre to Bleaklow Head at 631m is the full Dark Peak experience: black peat channels, no obvious line, and a cairn that appears out of nowhere. In cloud this is a compass job rather than a follow-your-nose job.

Torside Clough

From Bleaklow Head you join the Pennine Way and turn northwest, and the running gets good again. The path drops past Wildboar Grain and John Track Well, then runs the northern lip of Torside Clough along Clough Edge with the ravine falling away to your left. It is one of the best descents in the northern Peak: a clear line, a steady gradient, and around 400m of loss over 4km with Torside Reservoir in front of you the whole way. Past Reaps you drop back onto the trail and the car park.

Why it works

The shape does the work. A flat warm-up, one long climb, a summit that feels genuinely remote for somewhere half an hour from Manchester, and a descent you can run hard. The 447m of climb across 16.9km is not a big number, but Bleaklow's ground is slow and the plateau punishes anyone who has not brought a map. Take it as a navigation day with good running at either end and you will get the best out of it.