Ashford, Magpie Mine and Sheldon

Monsal Head and Monsal Dale

A four and a half mile circuit of about two and a half hours that drops from the Monsal Head viewpoint into the dale, follows the Wye upstream past Cressbrook and comes back over the viaduct on the Monsal Trail. The steep path down from Monsal Head is loose limestone and hard on the knees in the wet; the car park at Monsal Head is pay-and-display, small, and full by ten on a summer Sunday. Cattle and sheep graze the dale bottom and the meadows above Upperdale, so a fixed lead of no more than two metres is required near stock and on the access land above the dale from 1 March to 31 July for the ground-nesting birds; the river gives shallow, easy drinking all the way along.