Why You Should Never Visit England’s Peak District

First, let me begin by confessing that I still don’t honestly know if this region in England’s heart is the “Peak” District or the “Peaks” District. Further, I am unsure if the region overlaps perfectly with the eponymous National Park or if it has broader applicability. Sometimes I think that the park and the region are referred to differently and/or that the mysterious pluralization is added and removed when I’m not looking. Perhaps it’s a Schrödinger’s Cat situation where both “Peak” and “Peaks” are simultaneously correct.

What I do know for sure, after living there for the tail end of spring and the fits and starts that count as the beginning of summer, is that there are no peaks in the Peak/s District.

I don’t have to tell you that England is a relatively flat country. The proof can be found, if nowhere else, in our erstwhile home—Virginia. “How can the topography of Virginia inform one about the same in England?” you might ask. Fair question. Where was I? Oh yes, in the Appalachian Mountains. Notice the moniker, “mountains.” The Appalachians aren’t really mountains. Certainly not by the standards of anyone who has seen the Rockies, Alps, or Himalayas. The only reason that the east coast of North America has a “mountain range” is because it was named as such by the British. Had the Swiss settled Virginia, they would have called this land formation the “Appalachian Rolling Hills” or “That Slightly Raised Area of Land Over There.”

At any rate, elevation aside, and with no further ado, I would like to make the case that you should never visit the Peaks District.

Reason #1: Imperiled Driving

For those who have never visited the Peak District, and especially for those readers from the United States, I should explain that the Peaks District National Park is nothing like you might expect. In America, we expect National Parks to be utterly devoid of human habitation, excepting, of course, some park rangers and an occasional squatter. But for various reasons, not least of which I’m sure is that the UK boasts a population density nearly ten times that of the United States, national parks in England are relatively well-populated. In this country, it seems that a national park is simply a particularly pretty area in which people live–often in picturesque stone cottages with vague and insipid names that recall thatched rooves and storybook beginnings.

Thus, it should not surprise one to learn that the majority of the Peaks District is agricultural, with a plethora of charming sheep and ingratiating cows walled in by carefully placed stones, punctuated at junctures and crossroads by small towns built entirely of the same stones and pure loveliness. So as one drives the narrow and tortuous (which is not meant to imply torturous) roads, one finds it difficult to avoid raising his eyes to the beautiful countryside that stretches in the distance on rolling hill after rolling hill like the handiwork of a deified Bob Ross. In this moment of observed beauty and heartfelt contentment, one could very reasonably plummet off of the edge of the road.

Thankfully, and with credit to the rolling hills, one would likely survive such an occurrence—really, it’s hard to imagine anything horrible happing in the Peak District. One would merely careen down into a pasture to be surrounded by the aforementioned charming cows expressing great surprise and uncertainty at one’s precipitous arrival.

And that would be, to say the very least, very awkward. I, for one, would be embarrassed to ask the local farmer to hitch his car to a tractor and extract me from the bucolic ditch. It might remind some of us of a trip to Iceland when some unnamed people chose to ignore road closure signs and venture in a pathetically under-equipped Toyota Corolla over a small stretch of glacier to become thoroughly stuck, thereby resorting to begging some Vikings to rescue them. Such situations are always very awkward, I assure you. That is to say, anyone who had been in such a case before would assure you.

At any rate, it’s too beautiful to drive in the Peak District; I don’t recommend it.

Reason #2: Inexplicable Accents

I’m always amused when British people ask me if I can tell where they’re from by their accent. I’m not even 100% sure I could know that they are English, let alone which of the various storied counties they are from. The shires of England were established under Norman rule 800 years ago, many of them based on earlier Anglo-Saxon, Roman, or even Celtic communities. As such, they have diverse histories and sometimes hard-to-place idiosyncrasies of speech.

Cut to me in the spring of 2020, having hardly spoken to another soul for the past month, now sitting two meters away from someone at a coffee shop and attempting to decipher where in this country or the world he hails from based on his accent. I give up. I try to keep him talking, so as to acquire some more clues. It turns out that’s easy because, on average, the folks around here are amiable and willing to chat. And chat and chat and chat. Maybe it’s just the easing of lockdown that leaves everyone so welcoming and chatty, or perhaps they’re always like this.

Therein lies the risk.

If you were to disregard my warning, venture into the Peaks District National Park, and find yourself sipping a cappuccino in the vicinity of some locals, you might against your will be drawn into a friendly conversation. You might be unable to extract yourself. You might at that moment yearn for ingratiating sheep to protect you or, at the very least, to give you a hint about what accent you’re hearing. But the sheep won’t come to your aid as they are too skittish to be so bold. You would just have to sit there and chat with the pleasant and friendly people and wonder.

Consider yourself warned.

Reason #3: Meandering Paths

I can see us now, sitting atop a lovely granite outcropping. It’s a stone bench that was formed 350 million years ago during the Carboniferous Period, then slowly rounded by rain and wind to provide a lovely place for us to have a snack. From there, I recall looking at the map on my annoying little phone that simultaneously takes us away from the world around us and facilitates visiting it more effectively through useful things like trail maps. Effective except in this instance, perhaps. I was looking at the red line of the trail we were supposed to be following, as well as some of the dashed black lines that indicated a maintained trail—I think. Then there were the dashed blue lines that might be for bikes, or maybe horses, or maybe both (or possibly, but less likely, horses riding bikes). And the dotted lines, which probably represent sheep paths that dead-end at patches of particularly succulent grasses.

Then I recall trying to contrast all of these possible markings with the signpost map that we had seen hours and hours and hours ago, and holding all of these to account against the landscape unfolding beyond us. It was a lovely and murky bog with soil the color of coffee grounds cut deeply through by rivulets the color of tea; but for the rich smell of peat, it recalled one’s morning repast, wanting only for milk and sugar. Choose your own adventure here: you could sink halfway to your hips in wet messiness in this direction or, if you are like a sprightly young boy, go off that way to practice flipping from raised rock formations because the mossy ground springs like a vegetative trampoline.

I remember sitting there, comparing all of these different possible paths. None of them matched up. Any route that existed in one of these formats was almost guaranteed to be absent in all of the others, and yet the landscape was so inviting you could more or less go anywhere you wanted. I had a strange sense that we could walk any which way and declare a new path, but couldn’t resist the habitual instinct of trying to follow a prescribed path.

So what do you do? How do you find a way out? Miles from the hubbub of civilization, surrounded by beauty and only remnants of trails that don’t really lead anywhere… one might resign himself to being right there, and it might not be the worst choice ever made.

Getting Stuck in the Peak District

There you have it—three solid reasons why you should never visit England’s Peak District. To tour around along the gracious and winding roads overlooking some of the most beautiful countrysides in the world, one could positively hurtle off a cliff by accident. After that, one could be trapped into a conversation, unavoidable really, with one of the many friendly and charming people. And if someone is able to miraculously avoid both of these pitfalls, one might simply get lost in the beauty and never find a way to leave.

I’m warning you for your own good; I am trying to prevent catastrophe from befalling your life.

Take my advice, never visit England’s Peak District.