Tuesday – From Edale

Tuesday 7 June (1300-1900)

Distance: 12 miles (plus a few detours to look for a pitch)

Weather: sunny intervals, one heavy shower

Number of hares seen: 5

The timings of the trains on which I could use an off-peak ticket gave me a late start out of Edale (although with buses and trains not being conveniently timed it was an early start at home). That seemed, at the time, to be a bit of a shame, because the route I’d plotted (in something of a rush at gone 9pm on Monday night) was based on setting out much earlier. Eighteen miles with a 1300 start always looked rather too ambitious. As it turned out, I’m rather glad that things worked out as they did.

I could have lost some miles off the start of my route, but I’ve never headed south out of Edale before, so that’s what I did, up to Lose Hill via Hollins Cross. The ‘360 degree viewpoint’ symbols on the map combined with the ease of accessibility suggested that solitude wasn’t going to be on the cards. Four D of E groups were amongst those that I encountered up there, but the views were indeed excellent (albeit very poorly captured in my snapshots).

Not obvious in the photo, but there are lots of people on their way up this craggy lump

Looking back the way I’d come – where the clouds are gathering and rapidly approaching

Looking up to the head of the valley

Dropping down off Lose Hill, where the wind had been brisk and chilly, I saw that the sunny spell that had been with me since the outset was about to come to an end. The rain hit with violence, which saw me scrambling for my jacket. Seeing that the shower wasn’t going to last dreadfully long, I opted to just let my legs get wet. And so they did; very wet indeed.

Striding down the hill I wasn’t thinking about the fact that wet grass can be slippery, so it was a complete surprise when out shot my left leg from under me on one of the steeper bits. It happened so fast that I didn’t have time to flail, nor to utter my customary girly ‘oooh’ as I fell. Of course, with lots of other people around I did the customary thing in such a situation: I sprang straight back up and walked nonchalantly away as if nothing had happened. My shoulder and elbow would probably have preferred me to stay on the ground and feel sorry for them for a few minutes.

Ten minutes later I passed the last people I was to see all day. Yep, not a single person in the last nine miles. Quite incredible considering how many I had encountered to that point.

My plan for the rest of the day was a simple one: up the track to Crookstone Hill and then around the north edge of the Kinder Plateau. It was made all the better by the weather being fine and by having it all to myself.

As I looked out at this view I didn’t realise how much of it I was going to be visiting over the next couple of days (mainly because much of it wasn’t on the planned route…)

Past fantastic weather-eroded grit stone I went, enjoying my surroundings greatly, until tiredness and hunger struck and I started to keep an eye open for a likely looking pitch. That meant wandering a way off the path, hence I spent quite a bit of time investigating, dithering and discounting the first couple of places I looked.

Shapely rocks. Is that bottom one an elephant or a turtle?!

By the time 1900 was approaching I’d reached the point of “I am going to pitch somewhere over there no matter what it’s like”. As it goes, it wasn’t bad at all. A nice pitch of short grass, with a little bit of shelter from the keen wind (well, until the wind shifted about 3 hours later). If it wasn’t for the wind dictating the direction in which I had to pitch, then I would have had a bit of a view too.

Obviously (or maybe not so obvious if you’re not familiar with Kinder during dry weather), there was no running water nearby, but I took the precaution of collecting some from the only stream I found running after leaving the valley. Peaty it was, but I’ve had peatier.

I’m not sure whether this stream was completely dry or whether it’s where I got the water. There certainly wasn’t a lot of water, even in the one stream that was running. Well pitched tent, even if I do say so myself!

After giving the new (incredibly light (48g!)) stove its first test (a post on which is to follow in the next few days) and considered my options for Wednesday’s route (the original plan being out the window due to Day 1 ending six miles short of its target due to the late start), I settled down for a nice peaceful night…

…to be continued