"Win Hill Pike makes a delightful half-day excursion and whilst there are several interesting lines of ascent certainly that via Twitchell Farm is the most pleasant. At the opposite extreme the route from Yorkshire Bridge is indubitably a real horror, a muddy step-ladder under a heavy canopy of conifers.
Geographically, Win Hill belongs to the Kinder Scout massif, but the long connecting bridge, forming a curtain barrier between the Woodlands and Noe valleys gives the hill a strong independence and may fairly claim to be one of the prime viewpoints of Peakland."
Mark Richards
High Peak Walks
I have climbed up Lose Hill a few times. The most notable occasion was in my early 20's. Having walked along the Edale valley from Cooper's camp site, my brother and I took a sharp ascent of Lose Hill over some barbed wire fences, stone walls and onto the rugged grassland above. From that approach Lose Hill offered three increasing gradients, so the energy expenditure in climbing it was deceptive; about half of your effort was spend on the final 1/3 of the hill. Although it was decades ago I remember getting to the top my very first time, and being in yearning need of a brew, but had to wait for my sluggardly sibling to arrive with the flask. Once he eventually arrived, he pulled out the flask only for us both to be greeted by the inimitable clank of broken glass and weak tea pissing out everywhere. For me, that moment most captured the essence of Lose Hill.
Over the years I would reach the summit of Lose Hill, usually after walking the ridge from Mam Tor, to inwardly re-live my tea trauma and wistfully look across to Win Hill, imagining all the lucky walkers there with flasks full of hot tea, and reliably footsure brothers. Imagine my joy when this year I got my chance to see how the other half live. Although it was a hot day for walking, Win Hill is a feasible climb taking Mark Richard's advice and ascending via Wooler Knoll. Reaching the top of Win Hill and recalling flask-gate, I looked all around the Peaks like a conquering hero and realised that when you reach the top of Win Hill, all you can see around are losers.
"But we mount the heights of our being only to look down into darker colder chasms."
Margaret Fuller,
From a letter to Elizabeth Hoar, May 15th 1859.
View over Hope Valley
Tracker data
Walking route: 3D view (Drawing by Mark Richards)
Walking route: plan view (Drawing by Mark Richards)
Looking back towards Lose Hill, Great Ridge and Mam Tor
Looking North towards Ladybower Reservoir
Two heads of Ladybower
SE view of Lose Hill
Approaching Win Hill Pike, aka the Pimple
Ruins on the way down
References
Highland, Chris (Ed) (2007). Meditations of Margaret Fuller: The Inner Stream. Self Published.
Richards, Mark (1982). High Peak Walks: Walk 12 (pg.98). Cicerone Press. Reprinted 1989.
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