Groovy Kinder Love

                 

Groovy & Baby Kinder Love 05 Sept. 2026

I have added an option of running a shorter version of the Groovy Kinder Love with a totally uninspired name "Groovy Baby Love". Both races start together and follow the main race route to Jacob's Ladder Top CP 4 (the baby bypasses the down-and-up to Jacob's Ladder Bottom CP 5) and splits again at Broad Clough ford CP 7. The "baby" crosses the ford and goes over the stile while the main race turns right to follow the fence-line/Broad Clough for 30(ish) metres before going through a gate to climb back up to Cluther Rocks and the Three Knolls path. The baby continues around to briefly meet the main route again at Benny's bridge/bottom of Sandy Heys CP 10 (3:30 CUTOFF), where the baby turns left to climb up to the Shooting Cabin CP 12, while the main race climbs up William Clough. Both routes then meet again for the final descent from the Shooting Cabin CP 12 to the finish. There are instructions in the attached "Baby" PDF and and some route notes at the bottom of this page.
The stats for each race are:
Groovy (AL) 24.5 Km 1290m
Baby    (BM) 15.5 km    650m

There is just a single entry for both races (so you just enter the Groovy Kinder Love). You can decide at race number allocation which route you want to run. The race limit of 200 then covers both races so there will not be 400 running. 

Google Drive link to a PDF and PNG of the full race map.

Groovy Kinder Love race map PDF file

Groovy Baby Love PDF file

GPX should be available here. PlotaRoute GPX

You can watch a YouTube video showing a little dot doing the entire course in about two minutes here.
It makes it look very long😅
Interactive 3D video: Groovy Kinder Love recce

Click here for the 2021 Winners Strava Plot

This will make for an ideal first AL for anybody wanting to give this category a go as it is right down near the minimum acquirements for this category.

Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI)

This area is a SSSI, which does limit where the race can go. Hence there are a lot of checkpoints, to stop people going "off-piste", which would endanger getting permissions for future events.  This is the route details that have been agreed with the NT and have been submitted to Natural England

Route Detail

This is a fell race to there is little or no route marking. A number of people went badly wrong in 2024 because of heavy route marking for a trail race that also went through the area.

The two races split at three different locations. So be careful at these three locations that you do not blindly follow somebody on a different course.

1    CP4 Pennine Way Jnc./Top of Jacob's Ladder

2    CP7 Broad Clough

3    CP10 Bottom of Sandy Heys/Benny's Bridge

Groovy Kinder Love Start Valley Road, Finish Scout Hut

Start to CP 1 (Christine's Gate)

CP 3 South Head has been retired so ignore that CP.

                                         

N.B. CP 4 Split One Pennine Way Jnc/Top of Jacob's Ladder.

Jacob's Ladder to Edale Rocks & Broad Clough

The consensus seems to be that the longer way is actually faster.

N.B. CP 7 Split Two Broad Clough to Kinder Downfall. 
This is the second split. A number of people went wrong here in 2024 so be careful.

N.B CP 10 split three Kinder Downfall to William Clough Climb CP10 (Sandy Heys bottom - Benny's Bridge)

N.B There is a 3:30 cut off at this CP.

William Clough, Mill Hill, Leygatehead Moor

Shooting Cabin, Snake Path

Snake Path Down to Kinder Road

Route Notes

Note 1 Start to Pennine Bridleway Start Electrical Sub Station on Valley Road

The start is in front of the electricity substation on Valley Road

Descend off Mount Famine and turn left onto the Pennine Bridleway and follow it until you see the green footpath sign where you branch left to head over to Brown Knoll. If you start to descend steeply on the Pennine Bridleway you have gone too far!  Likewise after leaving the bridleway your start to bear left and descent then you have also gone wrong.

Note 2 Pennine Bridleway to CP4

You now have a long flat section to CP4 (Pennine Way Junction)  This is the first location where the routes split. The Baby (Short Course) just continues straight up to Edale Rocks; while the Groovy (Long Course) turns right to descend to Jacob's Ladder. 

CP 4 Kinder Green. Baby Yellow

Hopefully the marshall will have one of these signs stuck in the ground to remind you which way to go.

Note 3 Groovy Only - Jacobs Ladder
The Groovy decends to this cairn at the top of Jacobs Ladder where you turn right to descend the Mountain Bike track. The bike track is very rough with a lot of loose stones so be careful on that descent. 

Kinder Only Jacob's Ladder Cairn

Once you exit the gate at the bottom of the bike track turn left to ascend Jacob's Ladder. You do not need to visit CP4 a second time - you can bear right to follow the Pennine Way up towards Edale Rocks.

Kinder Only Bear right here to miss CP4 and continue along Pennine Way

Note 4 Edale Rocks

Keep Left by the cairn to stay on the Pennine Way

Follow the stone path up to the rocks and look out for the trod breaking to the left just before reachng them. The CP is below the rocks on the left hand side in the picture.

Edale Rocks

Look out for the trod just before the rocks

Note 5 Kinder Steps

Leave the CP and continue to follow the trod to the Kinder Low End Flag Stones. 

It is your choice now: 

1    follow the easier/longer way along the flags to Kinder Low End steps below or

2    leave the flag stones early to cut a straight line over rough ground to Broad Clough                                            

Kinder Steps

Descend from Kinder Steps to the gate and turn right

Ignore this gate - Continue straight on

Note 6 Broad Clough

Once again the race splits at CP7 (Broad Clough). Both races cross the ford; the baby then goes through the style and climbs up through the field. The groovy follows the fence line/Broad Clough to the right for 30ish metres before going through a gate and then climbing the Cluther Rocks track up to CP8 (Red Brook). 

Baby (yellow) over style. Groovy (green) through gate.

Kinder Only Note 7 Red Brook 
If you stay on the Red Brook path it actually leads you into the top end of the Red Brook scramble. If dry it is very easy so not a disaster if you end up doing it. To avoid it you need to break to the right off the path near the top to cut straight up to the Pennine Way.

Kinder Only Red Brook Scramble

After the CP just follow the Pennine Way to Kinder Downfall. With the early September date the River Kinder tends to be extreemly low so it will be very to cross. After crossing continue onto CP 9 (Sandy Heys). Then the steep descent to CP 10 (Benny's Bridge).

Kinder Only CP9 Descending Sandy Heys to CP10

Note 8 River Kinder

Groovy Baby Love only - instructions for getting from river Kinder to Sandy Heys

After leaving CP 7 climb up though the field and pass through the gate at the top and turn left. Follow the track and then a trod around the moor to drop down to the kinder bridge below.

Baby Only River Kinder Bridge

Cross the River Kinder bridge and uphill to the wall corner on the the left. Follow the path towards the reservoir and onto CP10 (Benny's Bridge). 

Note 9 Benny's Bridge 

At CP10 the two races both go over the bridge. The baby (yellow) then climbs steeply to the left up to the wall corner and onto CP12 (Shooting Cabin) The groovy (green) turns right to follow William Clough back up to the Pennine Way. Turn left and follow the Pennine Way to Mill Hill.

CP10 Benny's Bridge (Groovy: green; Baby: yellow)

Baby Only Cross the Bridge and Climb to Wall Corner

Baby Only Shooting Cabin Asent. Keeping right here is a little bit shorter

Kinder Only cross the bridge (or not!) and then the last big climb

Kinder Only William Clough Top
Come to the post from the left and then turn left on the Pennine Way to Mill Hill.

Note 10 Mill Hill Groovy Only

Be careful here as from the summit cairn the red trod is actually the more visible one. But do not take it as it just disappears after a couple of hundred metres. You actually turn slighly back on yourself to follow the yellow trod that brings you all the way to the shooting butts.

Once at the butts/stream-bed follow that downhill until the path become more established/you can see the white cabins off to you left.  

Mill Hill

Note 11 Shooting Cabin 

From the cabins (groovy: green) just continue to follow the path to CP12 (Shooting Cabins) by the green sign below.  The baby (yellow) will be arriving at the same CP from the left. 

CP12 Shooting Cabin (Groovy: green; Baby: yellow)

Note 12 Final Descent

From the CP follow the path to Hayfield (not Glossop).
N.B. there will be about five gates to go through before hitting the road in Hayfield. People have not gone through the first gate and ended up in Little Hayfield.

CP 12 Footpath sign by the Shooting Cabin

Down Snake Path then turn right onto Kinder Road

Straight on here (not left)

Come down by the blue car and stright across Market Street to go down the track beside Shaws

Path Under bypass into Finish Field

This is the same path you came through when going over to the start.

Groovy Kinder Love Results

Kinder Provisional Results	Baby Provisional Results
2025 Results	2025 Race Report
2024 Results	2024 Race Report
2023 Results	2023 Race Report
2022 Results	2022 Race Report
2021 Results	2021 Race Report

Race Report 2025

That is No. five finished and the highest number of runners to date with 133 pre-entry and 17EOD, but 24 "no-shows" brought the start list down to 50 Baby and 76 Kinder. I was amazed by how many no-shows there was and asked about it on the FRA Race Organizers Facebook group to be informed that twenty percent no-shows from online entries is typical. I was disappointed by only having 63 runners last year for the first attempt at hosting the two races. But after this one I am glad. I did not appreciate just how much time it would take to clearly identify who started each race.  It was only at number allocation that people stated which race they were running so that it had to be cross referenced against the online entry list and then the 17 EODs as well had to be included. Abbi and I were still deep into cross checking our start list to be informed that the Baby winner had arrived.  In 2024 the baby was won in 1:45 so I estimated that taking Jacob's Ladder out would knock 15ish minutes off that so maybe 1:30 winning time.  Josh Williams came home in 1:12 and nobody was there to meet him. The first aider came in to tell me the winner was here so we had to get Josh's time from him and quickly get the finish-tunnel manned. At least three clubs had the Baby on their club championship. Glossopdale obviously had some top runners out with taking five of the top six positions, with only Dark Peak's Laurence Piercy in third spoiling the Glossopdale party. My son Tim (3rd in the Kinder) is doing his sales job over in Sheffield and in 2024 got the Kinder winner Tom Perry over. Tom came over again but things did not work out for him but his car passenger Abbie Walker did the job coming home female winner and seventh overall.

The Marshall only barely got to the Shooting Cabin before Josh

So bar the mishap of Josh being too fast the baby went very well and I got a lot of very positive feed back about the course. So pretty sure the baby will continue to live.

Groovy Baby Love 2,1,3

Glossopdale party time

Groovy Baby Love Winner

I am going to have to rethink the computing. The baby finishers were coming in so fast I was flat out inputing the data. I was totally ignoring the WatsApp group so had no idea what was going on out on the course and there was a lot going on!  As it turned out I had an excelled group out there and it was only when things were finished that I could read though the entire conversation history. The volunteers were fantastic in the way they kept track of what was happening and took care of the runners who switched races and retired, which included going back down the course to find runners and walking them to safety.

First and First

Groovy Kinder Love 2,1,3

I have to say the phrase "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink," comes to mind. My race blog is full of route information and how the race numbering works so it is obvious from your number which race you are in. But still I had the winners of the two races racing each other to CP4 where they realized they were on different races. I had some runners take in South Head. Others went anti-clockwise around Edale Rocks despite the correct path being flagged and the marshall shouting at them. I believe someone fancied having a look at Park Hall before changing their mind (the blog does say their are five gates to go through descending the Snake Path).  I had others mess up the finish as they missed the path under the bypass. That is the same path they walked though in the morning going over to the start. There is a photo of it on the blog.

The Long Climb up from Jacob's Ladder.

Getting a well earned cool down at Benny's Bridge

I have mentioned in reports from earlier years that I have been dissapointed by the number of female entries. The creation of the baby was partly to address that. Last year the baby was almost evenly split between male and female. It was also very good this year with a M/F 31/23. I am especially pleased with having 22 women on the Groovy.

I have made a couple of donations to Kinder Mountain Rescue and the National Trust
Following a suggestion by one of the volunteers I also made a £100 donation to the Manchester Outdoor Education Trust that helps young people experience our great outdoors.

I paid a bit extra to Hayfield Scouts £70 and £100 to Hayfield Paris Council for the carpark.