Estimated Distance: 6 miles ---- Estimated Time: 3 hours ---- Grading: Good Exercise
Food & Drink: Ashford-in-the-Water, Monsal Head ---- Parking: Ashford-in-the-Water
How to Get There - Map Section
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From the car park entrance, turn right and follow the minor road then take the signposted footpath on your left. Continue via a stile, then a gate, to attain a walled track. Follow this track to the end.

At the end of the track turn left and continue to a stile; cross this and turn right along a clear path all the way to Monsal Head. Monsal Head provides a spectacular viewpoint - hence the lack of solitude, unless you're exceptionally fortunate - but many visitors are tied to their cars by an invisible umbilical, so peace may be regained shortly. However, pause for a while and enjoy the view of the dale below, with the River Wye running through glorious woodland and limestone scenery. The viaduct carries the Monsale Trail, on the trackbed of the old Midland railway line; John Ruskin made vociferous protests against the building of the viaduct and the line through the Wye Valley, but today the structure is widely admired as an integral part of a superb scene.

From Monsal Head walk along the road to a sharp right hand bend in the road above the dale. Descend the footpath on the left hand side of the bend to attain the dale bottom. Cross the footbridge over the River Wye and continue through Monsal Dale, with the river to your left.

On reaching the bustling A6 Buxton-Bakewell road, cross with care!! Go through the White Lodge car park (as signposted) to the stile. Bear left around the field and continue ahead along the path through Creat Shacklow Wood.

Pass the old mill buildings and gain the minor (Sheldon) road. Turn left to the A6 road; walk alongside the main road for a few yards to the Sheepwash Bridge, which spans the River Wye, to enter Ashford-in-the-Water.