||The English used in this article may not be easy for everybody to understand. (February 2012)|
Kinder Scout is a plateau about 600 metres above sea level. It is in Derbyshire, England, roughly between the villages of Hayfield in the west, Edale to the southeast, and the town of Glossop to the northwest.
The gritstone rock under the plateau is covered by a thick layer of peat, cut by a dense network of streams which flow off it. One of the main streams is the Kinder River, which drops off the Western edge at Kinder Downfall. Plants on the plateau are mainly heather, with some mosses and bilberry. Bracken grows on the slopes around the plateau. The highest point is Kinder Low at 633 m (2,077 ft).
It can be approached from the southeast up a steep track called Jacobs Ladder. It is crossed by the 268-mile (431 km) Pennine Way long-distance footpath which starts in nearby Edale. Several sections of the path have been surfaced with large stone slabs in this area, to try to minimise environmental damage to the delicate moorland ecosystem by the large number of hikers it attracts all year round.
In the 1930s, Kinder Scout was the scene of the first mass trespasses by ramblers (Sunday, 24 April 1932) protesting at the lack of public access to the open moorland in many parts of northern England, which were then kept for grouse shooting by the estates of a number of stately homes. Public rights of way were established later, and the 2000 Countryside and Rights of Way Act set a new legal framework in which the bulk of Kinder Scout is now "Access Land" where the public has a right to roam freely.