Kinder Scout

Me looking prepared at the start

As well as doing the lovely, relaxed, easy walk of the Great Ridge, we had to do something on Kinder Scout, this is an area that has such history in the UK. It was here that saw the mass trespassing that ensured we still have access to these great wild areas of the country. The UK is really a nation of ramblers and this trespass ensured we still have places to ramble. This walk was held in much more miserable conditions than the one on the great ridge, even taking into account the hail storms. It was meant to be only 14km, but through poor weather, poor paths and a lack of compass it ended up being a bit longer, about 4kms longer.

It was here that I actually got a bit nervous for the first time in the UK. If we were less fit, or less prepared, things could have gone a bit bad. It seems that the Mountain Rescue team do a lot of callouts for lost walkers on the plateau. And having been up there in really bad weather, I can certainly see how easy that would be. If you want tricky navigation, the Kinder Scout plateau is definitely a good challenge. And it's only 630m high or so, goes to show you that it's not necessarily elevation that causes issues. I would definitely go back to this place, but with a compass next time, it was so incredibly wild, and with a tinge of danger, and only 2 hours from London. That's pretty awesome!

The threatening skies - this was when we could still see.

If you like a good bog too, this is the place to go. It was quite incredible, pulling yourself up onto the peat blobs. I don't even know how to describe them, but these tussocks would be almost as high as me, and you would have to pull yourself onto them, there was no way around. And just so much mud. I was kind of expecting a path, across the plateau, but once you leave the edges there really is nothing, no people, no paths, no view. I don't really have many photos from the second part of the walk, since once we left the edge it became a bit more strenuous and I got a bit tired.

The sheep, safe in their fields

Our walk took us up Jacobs Ladder, so you start off wandering through fields with little lambs, and it's all quite pleasant. And then you get to the top and the cloud is super low, there is snow everywhere and the wind is really quite strong. On this first part of the walk there were quite a few people around, I guess because the paths were so good at this point. So we are still feeling pretty comfortable and relaxed. We were thinking we were going to be finished this walk in no time!

There are also all these great rock formations along the edge of the escarpment, they really look kind of mystical, as if giants had something to do with them. All around is just this boggy heather stuff, and then every now and again there are these massive rock piles. The route I had originally planned meant we would avoid most of the big rock piles, but luckily, with our lack of compass we got to do them as well. We carried on around the edge of the plateau until we got to Kinder Downfall, it's a waterfall, the names are really weird in this part. But the wind was so strong a lot of the water was actually blowing upwards. That was pretty cool.

Some of the weird rock formations in the distance

Kinder Downfall, with the water flowing up

This was when it then got a bit dodgy, the map I had suggested there was a path across the plateau to complete the loop where we started. We had also got a bit complacent with the great paths we have seen before in the UK, so hadn't bothered with a compass. Big mistake. The path was almost entirely non-existent, you were just searching for foot prints really. We were following a water course, so perhaps the water was higher than usual and had covered what path there normally is. Or perhaps it's so boggy up there, that paths just don't last. We were always going to be ok though, we had the map and knew so long as we veered more one direction than the other we would eventually hit the escarpment edge again. You didn't want to veer the other way, as you would have ended up parallel to the edge, and that would not have been good. The weather had really deteriorated at this point too, so we could barely see 50m ahead. All rather fun.

We managed to see some of the rocks in the distance eventually, then it was back along the edge on the other side of Edale. I definitely want to get back there, to explore more of this plateau. Hopefully in better weather.