(S/E) From the front door of the Snake Pass Inn, cross the A57 main road quickly but carefully. Turn right and walk along the verge until you reach coniferous woodland on your left.
(1) Shortly afterwards, go down some steps on your left and over a stile into the wood. Follow the path downhill past the Snake Woodland sign. At the bottom of the valley turn right, following the forest fence on your right.
(2) Cross the footbridge and follow the path round the end of the wood and alongside the River Ashop. Continue between river and forest fence, ignoring a gate into the (clear-felled) woodland. Beyond the end of the wood, keep along the stream into open grassland and bracken.
(3) The path crosses a number of side streams, and passes a small (often dry) pool before reaching a ruined shooting hut above a footbridge over the stream. Keep along the same path on the northern bank.
After a further mile or so the valley becomes wider and shallower, and the stream and path rather lose their identity among a maze of rushy channels and shaly banks as you approach Ashop Head. However, towards the head of the valley you should pick up a paved path that conveys you easily to the Pennine Way at a crossroads by a waymark post.
(4) Turn left and climb the steep pitched path that leads up a shoulder of Kinder Scout onto the plateau. Immediately beyond a cairn, turn left over a stile and follow an indistinct path that heads up through bilberry and moor grass to the first rocky outcrop ahead of you.
Here pick up the edge path proper and follow it left for a couple of miles with good views all the way. You will pass a series of gritstone tors and wind-worn outcrops, and minor stream crossings above the steep rocky cloughs of Upper and Nether Red Brook.
(5) At the apex of Fairbrook Naze is a distinctive rock sculpted in the shape of a goblet, at which you swing right, keeping above the succeeding rocky outcrops.
(6) When you reach the head of the Fair Brook valley, drop to the stream and leave the plateau heading down the valley (North - East), initially finding your way close to the streambed but soon on a more obvious path to the left. Take your time picking your way down the bouldery slope, passing through a gate partway down.
As the gradient eases, keep along the ever-growing stream for a pleasant mile, passing shaded waterfalls and negotiating alternately rocky and boggy patches.
(7) When you reach the river at the bottom of the main valley, follow the path to the left then cross the footbridge over the Ashop on your right. Go through the gate and swing left, following a path that wanders mostly uphill through the trees to emerge at a stile in the far corner of the wood by the A57. Cross the road and return the Snake Pass Inn. (S/E)
