My second mini-adventure started with an unwelcome alarm at
6 am on Saturday morning signalling the need to get out of my nice warm bed in
time to get over to Edale in time to see the sun rise. I was planning to run
the route of the Edale Skyline, an
annual fell race race of 21 miles and 1400 m of ascent, starting at Edale and hugging the skyline
around the valley.
I crawled out of bed, got some porridge and coffee down me
and headed off in to the Peaks. After some minor unplanned detours due to a
road closure and a stupid car park ticket machine not wanting to let me buy a
ticket until 8 am, I set off from the car pack by Mam Tor (just missing the
first bits of the sunrise as a result of that ticket machine!).
There was biting wind but I warmed up quickly, gaining a bit
of height getting up onto the ridge and then quickly getting cold again as I
got the camera out – couldn’t resist, it was a stunning morning. The ridge took me up over Lords Seat and
after a bit of indecision as to the best route to take over to Brown Knoll I
found the path. This section is hard
going over the bog (good training for the sand!) and I wished it had been a
little colder over the preceding days as there was only a thin skin of ice over
the peat. I can be a real wimp when it
comes to first getting my feet wet, so there was a bit of fannying about trying
to keep my feet dry. Once even a tiny dibble of water gets into my shoes I
don’t care anymore and will run through anything – you would have thought I’d
have grown out of this by now!
Anyway it was a beautiful morning, I had only the grouse and
skylarks for company and I was buzzing – definitely worth getting out if bed
for. Once I had got by feet wet I was really enjoying the terrain – not moving
terribly fast it has to be said, but this wasn’t about speed. I got up onto
Brown knoll, had a quick breather (not the first I have to confess, but the
earlier stops were mainly driven by photo opportunities), and headed off over
towards Kinder – more fun bog and then… out on to a walkers motorway – not
nearly so much fun! I met my first people on my way up toward Kinder Low – all
nice and cheery having been up for the lovely rise too.
I briefly departed from the route here to pop up to the trig
point on Kinder Low. I’ve only ever been
up on Kinder Scout in the cloud so I was curious to get a view over the plateau
– and this was supposed to be about exploring after all.
After this point the trail becomes quite rocky with lots of
amazing weathered rock formations in a strangely alien looking landscape. I may
have been hallucinating, but I was sure I saw what looked like the outline of a
family in one of the formations (sculpture not real of course – I’m not that
loopy yet). There was a really fun bit with the trail going between the rock in
a formation, with some rock acting as stepping stones over a small gully. I was
glad I wasn’t doing this bit in the dark!
After a couple of miles I reached the path split down to
Edale and having been robbed my opportunity to do the route from the correct
start point by the stupid ticket machine, decided I had to go down to the
bottom of the valley to make sure I didn’t miss any height gain. The sensible
people out for their Saturday walk evidently thought I was out of my mind as I
passed them for the second time on my way back up.
As a reward I stopped back on the top for a little lunch and
to take in the view. Then set off again round the edge of the moor with a wide
open view over to Win Hill. The downhill stretch was lovely but I realised on
the way back up again that I hadn’t been quite vigilant enough with my sugar
and suddenly found myself very grumpy at the path for daring to go upwards,
however gently. That uphill seemed to take ages (I wasn’t moving very fast) but
the views were lovely and the sun surprisingly strong. From the top of Win Hill
it was a quick (or not so quick) downhill into Hope, past the Cheshire Cheese
Pub which looked far too inviting. The final uphill was a 300 m ascent up to
the top of Loose Hill, which wasn’t too far but it felt like a very long way
with my knackered legs. The views were definitely worth it though, and I could
see the entire route. From there it was
just a last couple of miles along the ridge back up to Mam Tor, into the sun. I
was rewarded with some spectacular views of some hang-gliders to finish off
with.
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