I took part in the recent Field & Trek recommended walks feature – where they asked various UK outdoors bloggers to nominate their favourite walk / hike. Not that easy to do, as a few of us said in our responses.
There’s some great walks in there (well, all of them by the looks of it) – seventeen have been featured. Some from blogs I already read and some new ones too which is cool.
After some deliberation I went for one of the loops I like to do around the Marsden Moors. Here’s what I said:
“It’s really hard to choose that one favourite walk: I think that walkers, hikers, ramblers, trekkers (or how ever you tag yourself in the Outdoors tribe) are always looking to the horizon – the next walk might well be your favourite. I think some of my favourite walks have been those where I didn’t know what was around the turn in a path or what view was going to unfold over the brow of a hill.
If you held a compass to my head though and made me choose, then a particular walk around the Marsden Moors of West Yorkshire , where I live, would be my favourite. You start in Marsden, a lovely industrial village, and navigate your way along a Roman Road, skirting the top of imposing Pule Hill where Iron Age remains have been found. You then walk along Millstone Edge, an escarpment with wide open views that takes in farmland and moor, with history (from Roman to Victorian) in abundant evidence. Having picked up part of the Pennine Way for a while, you swing back along the old packhorse trail to Marsden.
I’ve done this walk of approximately ten miles many times but changes in weather, across the seasons and also in how I’m feeling make me notice and appreciate different things each time. And, conveniently, the finish point of the walk is the local real ale pub – which I’m sure must feature in many a favourite walk!”
And here’s the route I had in mind, previously mapped on one of my walks BUT the one below is a bit longer as it diverts off Millstone Edge and the Pennine Way to go down to the Castleshaw Roman Fort: