Kinder Edge and Chinley Churn

On the occasion of the English version of the TGO Challenge Annual gathering at The Snake Inn in Derbyshire during which I camped in the Akto on some tilted soggy stuff and skilfully avoided the walk arranged by the Arranger Alan Hardy. His idea of a 14 mile walk through the Pennine Tussocks And Bogs plus thawing snow in 6 hours put me off a bit, and, in the event, proved optimistic.

So, I wandered off lonely as a cloud, not seeing any yellow flowers at all – and followed Fair Brook (which could have been Lairig Fairbrook according to the rocky/snowy/misty conditions) – up on to Kinder Edge, which I followed Westwards till it met the Pennine Way.

There was hill fog and a cold wind and lots of snow. The mist eventually lifted to reveal the usual drab Pennine moorland stuff and, as this is the Derbyshire Peak, there was no shortage at all of other walkers. Quite a bunch, in fact, on the Pennine Way.

The Pennine Way, which is normally a line of paving slabs, was, just then, a line of frozen slush – impossible to walk on with any kind of dignity. Any attempt at increasing the pace on this potentially easier going just resulted in cartoon-like revolving feet and a graceful exit left into the snowy bog.

As planned, I cut down Doctor’s gate into Lady Clough and followed this past the piles of debris from cars on the main road that had come to grief, into the woods, which were blocked by landslipped fallen trees at a few points.

It must be said, that the standard of driving on The Snake road must be pretty poor to result in this amount of car carnage. there are bumpers and dashboards and windscreens all over the place. Maybe its for the best. Weed out the weakest links – that sort of thing. It is just Nature, after all.

In the forest I met Martin and Sue Banfield coming nthe other way. they fed me briefly on Caramel Shortcake and did their best to cheer me up, but I was soon back at the Snake where a couple of pints of Guiness put me in the mood for a pre-dinner snooze in the tent. I made sure not to empty the bladder before retiring, just to ensure an early wake-up call to avoid missing any of the festivities…..

Which were grand. There were many other TGO/bloggers there who, no doubt will be reporting on the bash – and so, I will gloss over it ..with some gloss. Be soothed, though, with the thought that there was, in fact, plenty of scoff to be had, enough booze and various TGO-type-gossip-type-tall tales.

And then it was Sunday.

I had a quick visit to Chinley Churn – a smallish quarried edge with a cracking view of Kinder, just above the unremarkable village of Chinley. Its a nice, short walk with plenty of company again. The actual summit is difficult to get to, though and some combined tactics involving a wobbly wall with wire netting, barbed wire and an electric fence before the view from the trig can be enjoyed. The map is grossly inaccurate here and shows a footpath crossing and recrossing the wall. Hah! Nothing of the sort. Its a figleaf of the Ordnance Survey Office Friday night pre-Christmas, just finish the bugger off so we can all go home thing.

Then I went home.

There are no maps of these adventures because I can’t find the CD with the Midlands on it, and these walks are in the Midlands.

But I did 10 miles and 1500 feet on the first walk and 3 miles and 500 feet on the second one.

Thanks to Alan hardy for organising the “do” and its a “hello” to all the TGO challenger-types who were there. I won’t do a list.

A thousand miles on Kinder

Tony Bennet (Pennineranger blogger – not the singer…) came up with the idea for this.
The plan was simply to walk along the Lose Hill – Mam Tor Ridge, then on up to Kinder Downfall, camp for the night and then return along the Southern Kinder edge and finish off with Win Hill.
Which is what we did.
I travelled down to Derbyshire by train and camped at Laneside Caravan park and was joined in the pub by Tony at some point in the evening.
Fortified by a Hope café breakfast, we left Hope (..er.. left All Hope….) on a beautiful summer’s morning and quickly bagged Lose Hill.
The walk along to Mam Tor was, as usual, a joy. Its justifiably popular, to such an extent that you’d be hard put to have a quiet wee.
Anyway, the walk went straightforwardly enough and after passing over Rushup Edge we turned North over Brown Knoll on to Kinder.
Here, we met various ladies in pink angel wings, out of a hen “do”. And we shared the trig with them whilst I celebrated my 1000th walking mile in 2009. (Pic shows a one fingered salute – that’s one thousand, not a rude gesture about swivelling.)
Kinder Downfall was devoid of any water, and the Kinder River above it had just standing pools, which didn’t specially bode well for camping. However, we pitched up on a sheltered spot that Tony had camped on previously (he seemed to be very familiar with a particular boulder which needed to be moved to ensure a comfy night0
And so, to the sound of the Manchester Airport aircraft stack, we settled in for the night.
The morning dawned grey and misty with some gently drifting hill fog and soggy tents. We followed the river and hags up on to the peaty top and, on a rough bearing over the watershed to meet the edge which we then followed Eastwards. Eventually, and rather suddenly, the hillfog lifted and we got a grand view of yesterday’s walk along the Mam Tor ridge.
One chap along the way had no idea where he was and asked for the names of locaal features and for directions and a group of senior walkers discovered after a brief chat thet they were heading in exactly the opposite direction to where they were supposed to be going.
By dint of much plodding in the right direction, however, we soon arrived at the summit of Win Hill, which was about to be occupied by a large number of what appeared to be a DofE expedition, intent on camping, in a tilted and breezy kind of way on the summit.
And that was pretty much it. This is a cracking route. Don’t do it, though, if you are a grumpy old rambler who objects to other people being on the same hill – because there’s lots and lots of people everywhere on these hills. Its absolutely heaving with walkers and their dogs and mountain bikers without bells. And there’s a healthy level of air traffic above too – and, even in the middle of the black bog, the sound of motorbikes on far distant roads can be clearly heard. This is no place for quiet meditation. I don’t mind the people and dogs, really. I find these busy places in the hills quite interesting. But if you want quiet – go somewhere else.

Thanks to Tony for a cracking weekend and for the idea...

I will walk five hundred miles and I will walk five hundred more just to be the man who walked a thousand miles... dum de do.....

TGO Challenge English Gathering

Put the tent up, alongside a few others in the ever-so-slightly-tilted grassy bits around Snake Inn’s car park, had a beer, had another beer, had some more beer, then made a cup of tea on my NEW STOVE. Boils very quick and doesn’t scorch the grass.
Friday night at the Snake Inn was purely for a spot of lightweight convivial boozing.

Saturday dawned clear and windy and a large bunch (or is it a bunch of large) Challengers hurtled off to Edale in some laid-on transport and , after some initial hesitation where nobody could decide whether or not there was a walk leader, we sort of started drifting off towards Scotland, up the Pennine Way.

It were windy. At a rest stop Sue Banfield produced a box of caramel shortcake and we all got cold.

Later, Kinder Downfall was blowing backwards, as it does sometimes and nobody could find the Kinder Eggs. There were suspicions that whoever said that this was the origin of the famous kiddie’s sweety may have been telling porkies for their own nefarious enjoyment. Personally, I’m not so sure.

The party split at the North end of the plateau and some went off down the direct path whilst others (including me) padded along the flags for a bit more Pennine Way, cut down Doctors Gate and finished with a flourish in some woods.

The Snake Inn is a fine choice for a grand gnoshup and a fine dinner was had. Various well-know challengers and bloggers and challenger/bloggers were there (as you’ve probably already worked out) and it was nice to meet Sue and Martin Banfield of Postcard from Timperley fame, and Phil (Lord Elpus) and Tina (Miss Whiplash) Lambert who do yer Doodlecat and Alvar and Anne who you may remember we met in the snowy Lake District a few weeks ago. Rather nice to meet Miss Whiplash in the flesh, as it happens and she did assure me that the wheals and rope marks will wear off with time. The hot poker burns may take longer. Anyway, it were a cracking do. Most, or at least some of the usual suspects were there and there was a fair smattering of Challenge virgins, and one or two people who had never done it before either.

Sunday saw me doing a little round around Black Edge and Comb Moss somewhere quite near to Chapel en le Frith. It’s a cracking walk to go around this edge – everywhere steep and rocky below, but magnificently level walking. Go off the path at your peril, though as the dangerously tough tussocks tend to trap the off-route tourist. I bet you can’t read that last bit with a gobful of toast, innit?

Finished with a flourish by driving up the M1.

See who you can identify in the photo. The prize is a night out with all of them at the Park Hotel in Montrose. Make your own way there and you'll have to buy the beer.

Horse Stone Naze and Cut Gate

Me and superdawg met Mike once again – possibly the final time in this current series of middle distance walks – on a nastily busy A616 near the Flouch Inn. [I need a rest after all of this]
Our route took us over doggy-prohibited grouse shooting moorland on to the wind and weather-clipped (and therefore, much easier to walk on than the heathery parts) tops. The particular top which we made for was Horse Stone Naze, a Dewey and otherwise fairly nondescript hillock which has a little gritstone tor on the top to provide just a little bit of excitement. Bruno made it to the very top with a little encouragement and a tug on the lead at a crucial just-about-to-blob-off-point.
Crow Stones, a bit further South provided a bit more interest with it’s strangely tilted rocks and nooks and crannies. Anybody who likes scrambling about on grit could pass a few entertaining hours here. Today (that’s yesterday actually) it was a bit cold and windy for that sort of thing. And I’m not much cop at that type of activity any more, so I tend not to do it.
And so we progressed Southly.
The peat hags around here are BIG and otherwise the ground is soggy and, in places, precarious for the cleanliness of one’s lower trousers – so the trek over to the junction with Cut Gate was, shall we say, sploshy and, occasionally very circuitous. Even superdawg, who doesn’t usually mind a bit of soft muck, was starting to get a bit paranoid about the potential depth of some of the soft and peaty bits.
Then it rained, then it almost went dark.
We descended easily, and very enjoyably in a half gale and fading light by the Cut gate bridleway.
The recrossing of the road was “testing” and took a long time before there was even a slight gap in the traffic. This road is a right bugger to cross – a constant stream of headlights in both directions. My best suggestion for doing this walk is to mug a lollipop lady of her lollypop and secrete it in the trees for use on your return. You’ll probably get killed, though. Live with it.

Or not.

A Somerfield petrol station and mini market sold me a bottle of Blossom Hill on the way home ..not my home… the dad-in-law’s home in Halifax.
Huddersfield ring road still as scary as it was when I once went to Huddersfield Poly…. Only scarier, actually..
Nice walk, though – about 12 miles.