T'other side of Kinder.

Liner socks.....check.

Hiking socks.....check.

Insoles for boots.....check.

Blistop.....check.

Zinc Oxide tape.....check.

Something missing.......feet.....check.

Simple this walking lark really.

So, where this time, well unless you didn't read the title the answer is Kinder Scout, why, why not I say? Streams, rivers, rocks, views, peat bogs and the ever changing weather, what's not to like!

To make it a bit different, we decided to approach Kinder from a different angle, that angle being from the North. Matt decided on a cunning plan, if we didn't plan a route, we couldn't get lost.....simple, but brilliant. We're not too bad at this directional stuff by now, but we could say hand on heart that we didn't take a wrong path all day. That's fine, as long as we get back to the car sometime in the next few hours. Matt had chosen a starting point, so everything was good. Getting to the starting point took a little longer than expected due to Nottinghamshire's finest constables diverting our first attempt at getting to the motorway...'move along sonny, nothing to see here'.

We arrived at our destination at the Snake Inn on the Snake Pass (A57), kitted up, then dodged the speeding traffic, across the road and through the woods to the River Ashop. The intention was to climb up to the summit through Fairbrook, after that it could be left or right....ahh, the freedom!

Fairbrook and our destination in the distance.

We started the climb up Fairbrook, the weather was excellent, after the amount of rain that had fallen over the past few days/weeks and the dark skies, we were amazed that we were again looking at blue skies. It appears that the weather Gods are pleased with us, or, we are in for the mother of all downpours sometime soon...I fear it is the latter.

Fairbrook was a decent climb, with the last part near the summit more of a scramble over boulders and rocks than a steady plod.

Nearly there.

Reaching the top, we took a few minutes to get our breath and it was Ginsters time for Matt...a Cornish pastie on this occasion. After a few mouthfuls, he announced that it would have been better if it had been hot. You can carry your own microwave matey! Decision time, left or right, well depending on your point of view, we went right (with Fairbrook to our backs, left next time maybe). It was getting a bit breezy now, so the woolly hats came out...then the jackets. Although the views were stunning and clear, we could feel that the cloud level was about to descend upon us.

Ashop Moor where we would be walking later on in the day.

 Walking past Fairbrook Naze and along to The Edge (no U2 affiliation I think) it was still sunny and the views were fantastic. It was only when we looked back that we could see how far the cloud level had dropped, it was coming down rapidly, then the views disappeared as visibility was 20 metres at best.

A novelty shaped rock I named 'the Turtle's head'.

We'd decided to head for Kinder Downfall and as we would approach from the North, we could take in the views from a different perspective, that was the plan anyway. We carried on following the path at the edge of Kinder and hoped to find the Pennine Way which would lead us to our destination. Navigating in poor visibility is not the easiest task, especially when you can't make out any natural features, but we managed it fairly easily. The route along the Pennine Way was easy going, the fact that we couldn't see the views obscured by the low cloud, was frustrating.

The 'view' at Kinder Downfall.

Reaching Kinder Downfall we decided to have something to eat, Ginsters were not on the menu at this stage (think the special offer has finished). So we sat and looked at the view. A couple of walkers appeared through the cloud, a bit like when they appear on 'Stars in their eyes'. They had come from across the top of Kinder, a route that we have travelled a couple of times and we know that it's not the cleanest of places.....ask Adrian. But this guy was clean, show room clean, no peat on his shoes and not a splash of muck. His wife/girlfriend (we didn't get to find the level of the relationship, although judging by her face it was going to be a short relationship) looked like she was soaked, fed up and didn't want to be there. I asked if he had come across the top, to which he replied he had and that it was too bad! He must know a good route or he was wearing hover boots because even around the edges of Kinder it was like swamp land with all the rain we'd had. With a knowing smile they disappeared into the cloud.

  

After another 10 minutes we decided to get moving again, mainly because it was getting cold. We set off the same way we had come, along the Pennine Way, then as quickly as the cloud came down, it disappeared, revealing Kinder Reservoir and the surrounding landscape, but only briefly.

A brief lift in the cloud.

We followed the Pennine Way back to the point we had joined it earlier, the cloud had lifted a bit, so we could now make out some landmark features. Taking the path off from Kinder and down to Ashop Head (start of the River Ashop, or very near it), we walked close to the river. Not too sure if it was a path next to the river or whether it was part of the river because the ground was so sodden. The river almost runs parallel to the route we had taken up on the top of Kinder, so we were able to see where we had been as the cloud had almost gone and the sun was back out.

It wasn't too long before we were traversing sections of the river and its feeding tributaries further downstream, all good clean (or not so clean) fun. There was the second diversion of the day, rerouted around a section of forestry commission land due to a bit of tree felling. Tree felling!!!.... it looked more like a war zone, like a scene from Apocalypse Now. There was not a lot left. Walking a bit further we met one of the guys working at the site, who explained that most of the trees were ready to fall down, so they'd been tasked to cut them down. Apparently, the area will recover quickly, if not it will be re planted. We left to the sound of a chainsaw firing up.

Back up to the road, a bit of car dodging and we were finished. 18km walked and the best thing (for me) was no blisters, brilliant.

Chris.

Return of the Kinder Scout.

So, day two.

We'd decided to change from our original plan of a walk around Allgreave and the Roaches, considered by some to be one of the finer walks in the Peak District, our chance to comment on this would have to wait until another day. So Kinder Scout again, a few reasons why, Joe had never been, the weather was looking good, unresolved issues of navigation and to find the elusive 'path' across the top.

To make it a bit different this time we decided to go the opposite way around from our previous visit, although we would still be starting from Edale. So from the car park at Edale we headed into the very picturesque village and took a left onto the start of the Pennine way. Walking along here you get a great view of the Vale of Edale with Mam Tor and the great ridge behind, but it seemed noisier this time and it wasn't the sheep and cows (they were the rather pungent odour wafting about the place). The noise was coming from a helicopter that was landing in the Vale and then flew off in the direction of the top of Kinder. Whilst walking towards Upper Booth, the helicopter passed over or around us several times carrying large bags of materials to the summit. We later found out that they were carrying lime and fertiliser to the summit to sustain the grasses and peat that was being eroded away by wind and rain.

                                                    Walking along the Vale of  Edale.

We reached Upper Booth where we had a quick 5 minute break and guess what made its appearance.....a Ginster's beef slice this time. We had stopped at a small bridge where Crowden Brook flowed through, so this was now to be know as Ginster's Bridge and should anyone visit from now on, they should pay homage to the bridge by scoffing a pastie of some description and leaving a few crumbs. Back to reality, on we trekked towards Jacobs ladder, which Joe was particularly looking forward to due to our tales of woe when we came down it the last time. How he loved it, as did I, we both had issues with blisters and now they were becoming painful. We soldiered on, watching Matt and Adrian getting further ahead. We all rested at the top and were joined by three sheep who seemed to be strangely attracted to Adrian's nuts.......and raisins. As we set off again, the sheep disappeared, but after a while they came running after us. We came to the conclusion that they knew a lot of short cuts to jump out at hikers and relieve them of any food stuffs they were carrying, fortunately Matt had already eaten the gourmet part of  our food stocks, so they were left with healthy rubbish.

Not sure who's bothering who here !!!

Reaching Edale rocks, we carried on the Pennine way to find out where we had slightly taken a wrong turn last time. At the trig point at 633 metres we could see exactly where we had gone in the wrong direction last time. Never mind, we know now. Carrying on our way, the constant noise from the helicopter became louder and louder, in fact it was quite noisy along the top of Kinder with planes, helicopters and the odd rampaging sheep attack all contributing to the atmosphere of a nice quiet walk in the country.

The weather was superb again, but a bit windy along the edge, so the views across the countryside were as excellent as you could expect. Reaching Kinder Downfall, we decided to stop for lunch and blister watch. Lunch was good, blister watch wasn't so good. Yesterday's bad boy had got worse and was sore, so plenty of patching up was required. It was now apparent where the helicopter was dropping off its payload, about a kilometre away from where we were sat. I'd estimate that it was about 5 to 10 minutes from pick up to drop off for each load, it'd taken us about 2 and a half hours to get here and he was going further across the Vale of Edale than we had walked from. Maybe he'd like to assist with our 3 peaks walk, 2 hours job done.

                                                        Wasps, don't ya love em?

So now we were going to attempt to find the so called path across to Crowden Tower, at least this time there was no low cloud and we could see where we were going. This made it a lot easier. We stuck to a compass bearing and looked for features we could head for. The ground was a bit firmer this time around, so there was no being buried up to your knees this time (Adrian), that said a few hairy moments were had. Confident that we had cracked this navigation lark we stuck to our course, despite seeing scatterings of  people reading maps and pointing at all angles, we were right and they were lost we kept telling ourselves. It proved to be right, we reached the partly dried up stream bed of Crowden Brook which would lead us to Crowden Tower.

Peat, Gritstone and sky.

The idea was to walk along towards Grindsbrook Clough and then back down to Edale. But being able to change a route when you feel like it has it's benefits, but i guess it could have its downfalls too. It was all benefits this time, we chose to go down Crowden Brook to Upper Booth (land of Ginster's Bridge). With Joe leading down the Brook like a mountain goat, we did our best to keep up with him. It was tough going in places, with some steep drops, slippy rocks and a few ankle breakers lurking along the way. At one of the steepest parts and whilst stretching for a decent foothold, a strange ripping sound could be heard, initially I thought it was my knee or hip (being not as flexible as I once was, if I ever was), but it was my trousers. The draft was nice though.

It was tough going, all the way to Upper Booth, but very enjoyable, must try going up next time.

Adrian on his way down Crowden Brook.

From Upper Booth it was back the way we had come along the first stretch of the Pennine way, with the helicopter still buzzing above us like an annoying wasp we entered Edale, a bit footsore but having had another brilliant walk, in brilliant weather, in beautiful surroundings.

Add caption

ENDOMONDO TIME.

The data seemed to stop working for the drop down Crowden Brook (I think I may have paused it before we started on our way down by mistake), but it gives you an idea of the route. The wavy green line at the bottom is my heart rate, I needed to be revived on several occasions.

Chris

Goyt Valley.

First walk for a couple of weeks, so why not do two.....great idea.

Matt and myself had looked at two walks over two days, mine was around Goyt Valley which included Fernilee and Errwood reservoirs, with Matt's taking in Allgreave and the Roaches.

Day one, Goyt Valley.

Traffic was really bad leaving Nottingham, it's amazing how much busier the roads are when the kids are back at school, so we didn't get to the car park until about 9.30 ish, Adrian was already there when Joe, Matt and myself rolled up. After a brief discussion about the cheap phone charger I had bought and had failed on the way, leaving me with no phone, no sat nav and worst of all, no ENDOMONDO (other tracking software is available), we set off. We started from a car park next to a small pond/lake/pool which is west of Buxton before the reservoir at Errwood. Heading down and across Wildmoorstone Brook and on towards Wild Moor, everything was fairly easy going and we had a steep climb ahead of us. It didn't look too bad initially, that was until we started climbing it. It was tough going to say the least, short but pretty painful, for me anyway. I got to the top of the steepest part and just had to sit down. I was trying to get air into my lungs because my head was spinning and I felt sick. The others took one look at me and asked if I was alright? My response, between gasping for air was something along the lines of "I'm not sure if I am going to puke or shit myself".....I really did feel that bad. A few minutes of heavy breathing and I felt much better, never felt that way before and don't particularly want to feel like that again. We continued the climb over Wild Moor with no more untoward events, apart from disturbing the local Grouse population who let us know about it in no uncertain terms.

In among the Grouse on Wild Moor.

Crossing a small footbridge we arrived at Goytsclough Quarry where we decided to a have a quick break before moving on. Adrian pulls out a bag of mixed nuts and raisins, Joe had a sandwich, I had a  muesli type bar and Matt pulls out a really healthy looking Ginsters chicken slice...well, it was cheap he said. After demolishing the Ginsters, we walked on towards Errwood Hall, after there, it was all uphill towards Shining Tor. The views from here were amazing as it was such a clear day. After much deliberation of where in the UK we were looking over we decided that we should have paid more attention in geography lessons in school. We carried along the ridge towards The Tors and Cats Tor, where we met a lone man who started chatting with us. He seemed to know the area very well and pointed out to the more geographically challenged of us, that the two major Cities/Towns we could see were indeed Manchester and Macclesfield. He then began to give us his life story and our eyes glazed over. It turned out that he was a magician, we said that we were too and promptly vanished!

The weary walkers arrive at Shining Tor.

That's Manchester in the distance....or was it Scunthorpe?

For a bite to eat, we stopped along the ridge looking out over Errwood reservoir. It was a brilliant view on a really clear sunny day. It was about this time that I thought I'd better check my feet for blisters. Having used the Blistop (bought for me by my lovely wife, see previous blogs) early in the morning I was hoping for an absence of the little buggers. There were none where I usually get them, happy days, but there was the blister from hell on my heel. I patched it up with a blister plaster. I think it was caused by my boot being slightly looser than normal, school boy error. Joe had a nasty toe blister which he tended to and then we were off again. It was decided that because of the lateness of arriving, that rather than walking in the direction of Fernilee, that we would head off the ridge and down towards Errwood reservoir. A short time later we were at the road that crossed between Errwood and Fernilee reservoirs where we spent several minutes marvelling at the engineering of the dam and it's sluice....that's what us engineers do you know....marvel at engineering things, mainly because we know of the hard work that's gone into it and the possible cock ups along the way!

Errwood Reservoir.

Fernilee Reservoir.

From here we circumnavigated (big word time) Bunsal Cob and made our way up to the car park where we started. Again, the weather had been superb and we'd had a really good day (barring blisters) it seems that the sun is really shining on us, no doubt before we get the drenching of our lives at some point.
During the days journey, we'd decided to shelf the walk that Matt had planned and revisit KInder Scout, mainly because Joe hadn't been there before and the weather was looking like it was going to be another glorious day.

Not sure about the Max speed on this, but as you can see on Matt's ENDOMONDO by eating a Ginster's Chicken slice you have to walk about 15km to negate the calorie intake!!!!













Coming soon...............return to Kinder, the sequel, part deux, take two...another chance to see etc.

Chris

Here's hoping!!

Regular readers of the blog will now be quite familiar with my little problem with blisters (probably quite fed up with them too). Well, over the next couple of days we have planned two 20k walks in Derbyshire to build up the stamina for the big day, so if the usual pattern applies, I'll have the dreaded pus balls on my feet after the first 10k. In order that my colleagues are (1) not kept waiting (2) not in stitches at my attempts to walk on my hands, I've taken the followings steps (pardon the pun). New insoles with a gel backing, boots now feel tighter....less movement, less friction, reduction in the cause of the problem....hurray I hear you cry, the lad has cracked it...well, we'll see about that!
The other step (ha, two puns), was bought for me by my wife, probably because she's sick of watching me hobble around the house after our walking adventures, it wouldn't be because I ever mention anything about the golf balls on the soles of my feet, because I don't.....much. What is this miraculous prevention method you might be thinking, you might be, but you might be thinking 'why am I reading about some stupid bloke with soft girls feet', so, who's the strangest, me for writing about it or you for reading it? I digress, it's a spray that claims to prevent blisters called Blistop.

Not sure about walking around Derbyshire in red heels, but if that's what it takes, I'm game for it. No doubt I shall be telling tales of our days out and of any amusing incidents involving our merry band of  intrepid foot sloggers, high heels or not!

Chris.