Mam Tor and the Great Ridge

A 5.4-mile circuit with 190 metres of ascent and about two and a half hours, lifting straight out of the village onto Commondale Moor before returning down the old moor road to the Esk; the climb is steady rather than steep but the moor top is boggy in every month with an R in it. It starts by the shops at the top of Castleton, where there is free roadside parking, and Castleton Moor station on the Esk Valley line sits at the bottom of the hill for anyone arriving by train. Commondale Beck gives a drink near the halfway point and the moor is broad, open, off-lead country, but sheep roam loose across the whole of it and this is grouse moor, so leads go on for the open sections from 1 March to 31 July.

Six miles and three and a quarter hours, climbing the old coffin road to Hollins Cross on the Great Ridge then dropping to Hope and returning along the Peakshole Water. The Castleton visitor centre car park is the start and the walk can be split by the Hope Valley train, which takes dogs free between Hope and Hathersage. Sheep graze the ridge and the valley fields, so a two-metre fixed lead is needed near stock and from 1 March to 31 July on the access land, but the Peakshole Water beside the last mile is shallow, clean and made for a hot dog.

Under five miles but nearly three hours, because both halves are steep: a rocky gorge climb out of Castleton and a return down the limestone cleft of Winnats Pass. The narrow entrance to Cave Dale is behind Bar Gate in the village; park in the Castleton main car park on Buxton Road, which is pay-and-display and the only sizeable option in the village. The lower gorge is a scramble over water-worn limestone that a small or elderly dog will struggle with, sheep graze the whole plateau and Winnats, and the National Trust asks for short leads all year across its High Peak land, tightened again from March to July for ground-nesting birds.