Stanage's naturally weathered Millstone Grit face is now known as a highly popular location for rock climbing in the Peak District. The edge runs three miles north from the Cowper Stone to Stanage End. It is the northernmost of an almost continuous line of cliffs, including Burbage Rocks, Froggatt Edge, Curbar Edge, Baslow Edge and Birchen Edge. The Cowper Stone is a block of gritstone at the most southerly point of Stanage. Set alone a few hundred metres from the last buttress of the main crag, it is a large boulder with distinctive rounded breaks running across it. It is the scene of some classic hard-grit routes of the 1980s first climbed by protagonists such as Johnny Dawes and John Allen. The Edge was notably omitted from the first rock climbing guidebook to the Peak District, Some Gritstone Climbs by John Laycock, published in 1913, due to the then severe access restrictions to the land. It has subsequently been featured regularly in over a century of regular climbing guidebooks, which document the growth in the number of routes and the rise in climbing standards.