I love...

Mission accomplished

Saturday February 12 - hunting for aircraft crash sites, Black Hill

Back to find the downed Meteors. After being thwarted by the swollen Crowden Little Brook last week I park at the Holme Moss transmitter and swing in from the east, around Heyden Head and down across Tooleyshaw Moss. It's rough, wet ground, with no footpaths for the most part. And almost immediately I take an unexpected dip in thigh-deep peat, shipping a load of it through the vents in my trousers. Nice.

The Meteor crash site is easy to find. On a training exercise, they came down on April 12 1951 seeing Stockport through thick cloud and mistaking it for Leeds. Like dozens of other pilots making similar mistakes over the Dark Peak, they flew into the hill. A grimly fascinating place now, with wreckage strewn over a wide area. I remind myself that 2 young men died here and spend a few moments at the little wooden memorial cross, reflecting on that.

Swinging back round north west to join the Pennine Way below Meadowgrain Clough it's a relief to eventually reach a proper footpath. Unlike last time I was up here, Black Hill is back to its familiarly soggy self.

The big surprise of the day comes when I find the remains of another plane I wasn't even looking for. It's the few bits that remain of a Fleet Air Arm Fairey Swordfish that came down on Heyden Head on January 25 1940. In this case it was a month between the pilot being reported missing and anyone finding the plane. That's what it's like up here. It's a big part of why I love it.

The rest of the wander back to the car is sunny and sleety and moody. A typical Dark Peak February afternoon ...

 

Beyond tranquility

Sunday October 10 2010 - Geary, Waternish

 Eagle and burial mound

 

Spring at last

Saturday April 24 - Wood Anemone in Big Covert, near Maeshafn

View over Conwy

Easter Sunday April 4

And there's Moel Siabod again ... we never knew you can see her from here.

More hooks than a box of fishing tackle

Friday March 5

The sun came out. I was stuck in traffic. Late for work. The 3 Metric tracks on my current 'various mp3s' disc played through. For the nth time I thought 'I love this band'. The 'Fantasies' album has enough pop hooks to span a whole career. Feelgood cool. A bit of a rarity.

Sometimes it's the little things

After several years of languishing in the crime-blighted and socially deprived wasteland of Leeds 9 I am now blessed to wake each morning in my own little rural idyll, well away from all that. Here I watch Buzzards hovering over pasture instead of listening to burglars screwing my doors. Evenings see me watching bats and Swifts from my patio. Or hay-baling on the farm up the hill from my garden. Squirrels wreck the neigbours' arrays of bird food, which bring in more garden birds than I've seen since I was a child; Bull Finches, Robins, Thrushes and other birds I haven't yet identified or managed to capture on camera. I used to have to escape home to see beauty and feel safe. Now I wake to the muffled sound of bullocks munching on the pasture just across the lane. Instead of groggy and reluctant to get out of bed each morning I'm alert and calm, drinking an al fresco morning brew as the sun breaks through the trees.

Feeling safe at home is not a big deal. But then again, it is. And it's a reminder that sometimes it's the little things that are great. Like these, all enjoyed over the past week without even leaving home.

 

And these, seen elsewhere. My favourites are the 'raggedy crow' who's adopted my friend and 'BT' the floppy cat who's adopted my dad. Maybe something fluffy and cute will adopt me.

 

Grindsbrook Clough, Fairbrook Naze and a guilt trip

Saturday June 27

Kinder Scout is my favourite hill in the peak, so back again - this time to explore the western side and northern edges. The plan is to ascend Grindsbrook, cross to the Downfall, then over to Fairbrook Naze, traverse Blackden Edge and return via Golden Clough. It's going to be an energy-sapping one today, with a hazy sun that makes the atmosphere sticky and airless. A weary looking couple come by near the bottom of the gentle walk-in. The guy, looking back to the hill, says 'I wouldn't bother mate' and we laugh when I say I've got 10 miles planned. It's one of those days when you enjoy the crack with strangers and I have a lot of it because the whole route up is peppered with walkers. I drink at least a litre of water on the way up and most of it seems to sweat straight back out so my ultra lightweight shirt and trousers are soaked by the time I take a coffee break at the top and enjoy the views.

I'm sometimes amazed at how ill-prepared some folk are in these hills. I've seen a family, wearing trainers and sandals, perilously scrambling down earlier - the overweight woman complaining in an American twang 'I'm kind of scared of heights and I need shoes with better grip' as her Birkenstocks slip on the arid scree. No shit missus. I feel like pointing her to the Edale Mountain Rescue website for stories of similar stupidities that lead to people like her regularly being stretchered off or airlifted with compound fractures and worse.

At the top a young student couple ask me the way to Kinder Downfall. They have no map and although they say they have a compass, it's never produced. Unless the guy means his iPhone's built in version, which is apparently low on battery anyway. They look at my map and I urge them to write down the compass bearings they'll need. They don't. I suggest they walk with me, or just keep me in sight, but they don't take me up on the offer. I'm tired. I want to chill with a fag and my drink and I'm not paying close enough attention to the landscape when I inadvertantly send them off up the wrong path. Later when I realise my error, I feel a bit guilty. The poor buggers have wandered off toward Edale Head but at least it's an easy route down to the village from there. They'll be safe enough. And as I head across toward the Downfall I realise they would have struggled to find it in this landscape anyway.
 

It's teatime when I reach Kinder Downfall and drink in the view with Kinder Reservoir sparkling far away in the evening sun.

My 2 litres of water are all gone now and there's another 6 miles to go. Now it's going to be all about the rocks. Big rocks. Weird shapes and wide vistas.

Time to strike out across open moorland again to take in the beauty of Fairbrook Naze, explore Seal Edge and eventually Blackden Edge.

There are no walkers around these parts. It's off the beaten track now and most people are probably back at one of Edale's typical walkers' pubs anyway. It's quiet, apart from some peculiarly haunting bird calls.

It may be a tired old cliche but, to me, the rocks are alive in some way. Endlessly battered into shape by wind, rain and the freeze/thaw of millions of winters. I sometimes fancy that I can sense the people who once lived up here among them. In the days when it was all dense forest. That vibe is part of the magic of Kinder. Everything about it gives me a feeling of groundedness and connection with all that is bigger than my own petty everyday concerns. They were always here and, unlike me, they always will be.

It's 9:15 by the time I've descended Golden Clough and reached the Rambler Inn, with 11.5 miles showing on the GPS. I feel strangely fresh and the pint of iced coke I down in the beer garden has got to be the finest liquid to pass my lips this year.

Track recorded by GPS - 11.5 miles, starting from Edale.

Some miles are harder than others

Saturday June 20 - Black Hill and various moors

Black Hill is always wet but it’s got nothing on Wessenden Head Moor. The route up from the A635 is easy but the going gets tough as soon as I turn right at Soldier’s Lump and head north west.

The footpath that exists on the map is generally obliterated on the ground by standing water and sodden peat that feels like walking in thick butter. Think energy-sapping sand dunes, only black and wet. With a constant stiff breeze from the south west.

 

It’s a cheerless moorland trudge. Sometimes they happen. Good job my GPS is waterproof, as I plunge knee deep into black peaty water and submerge it several times as I scramble out. Dry feet are out of the question up here, even in boots and gaiters I’ve waded successfully across streams in before.

I’m pissed off with the terrain and the only relief is the birdsong that constantly fills the air. One sound stands out. I'm loving that sound.

 

Later I’ll spend ages looking at books and bird identification websites trying to decide if it’s a Curlew or a Whimbrel. I want it to be a Whimbrel because they are in severe decline but I think it’s a much more common Curlew.

So hacked off with the last 3 miles, when I come to re-cross the A635 I consider simply turning right and heading straight back to the car instead of doing another 5 miles around Featherbed Moss, Black Moss and Wessenden Moor. But after a drink and a smoke I continue north westand feel relieved that the route is being ‘paved’ now. At last each step doesn’t feel like 3 on the bits they’ve finished.

And the landscape begins to change after I swing east at Black Moss Reservoir. Evening sunshine makes the colours rich and at the crossing of Wessenden Brook before it reaches Wessenden Reservoir it’s as beautiful in its way as the top of Kinder.

Even the gentle climb south east for the last 2 miles now feels like a guelling hike. Stops to enjoy the view back are increasingly frequent.

The bogs have really taken their toll and I’m wiped out. The last half mile feels like it will never end. Finally reaching the car the GPS says 10.1 miles. It felt like 15.

 

10 things to love about an Easter weekend in Llanidloes

1. Red Kites - this one sighted on the afternoon of Saturday April 11...

2. A Quaker burial ground - scene of oddish experiences each time we visit it...

 

 

 

3. Mental sheep - the moment you appear they either leg it, or mob you...(very different from Peak District sheep, who glance up diffidently then pointedly turn away)

 

 

 

4. Rolling landscapes - that seem extra green...

 

 

 

5. Dense commercial woodland - it smells great in there

 

 

 

6. Random cool things - like moorland wind farms

 

 

 

7. Either invisible or unnavigable rights of way - clearly not many people go walking round here...

 

 

 

8. Random amusing stuff - well, it looked like a miniature skull to us...

 

 

 

9. Buzzards overhead at breakfast - you don't get that where I live

 

 

 

 

10. Cheap and lovely accommodation - this was £50 per night...

Surreal and sad

 
Saturday February 28. Bleaklow on a flat grey cool afternoon. What remains of the B29 Superfortress 'Overexposed' that crashed, killing all 13 crew, in November 1948. I kneel for a few moments and think of those people. Susie photographs a glove that later sends chills through her. It's a surreal and macabre and moving place.

There's a good account of the Overexposed tragedy here.