Kinder Scout Edge Walk

Hello all, this blog is beyond fashionably late, its so late in fact there are no words to describe it 🙂 yes believe it or not, this blog should have directly followed the one previous, what! i hear you cry, i know terrible right, i can only appologise 🙂

So without further ado i shall get on with it….

This journey begins where the last one finished, and that was at the base of the Grindsbrook clough in the beautiful Peak District. The weather was pretty clear with a dampness in the air, but higher up on the Kinder plateau was the usual dense cloud looming rather ominously. That was however to be my destination for the day, but first i had to wait for my friend Colin to arrive.  Once breakfast had been eaten, i packed my gear away and went to the meeting place. Soon Colin arrived and we began to make our way up the Grindsbrook clough scramble and up on to Kinder.    Once at the top of the scramble we had a short breather before making our way into the cloud. Our route took us first along the southern edge of the Kinder plateau, as we made our way toward Ringing Rodger. With the clouds so low the views were not great, but the wind did occasionally give us a short break, and let us take a glimpse of the great scenery, albeit briefly.     The weather continued to clear and close in again as we passed Ringing Rodger, and upon reaching the top of Jaggers clough we decided to refill our water supplies from the stream before deciding we’d head to Crookstone Knoll for lunch. For this trip i’d only brought dehydrated meals and snack bars. This had proved troublesome on the Limestone way due to lack of water, but there was no such problem on Kinder, and i was excited to try my first Adventure food packet.     Whilst the meal was very tasty, it wasn’t particularly spicy for a curry, but id definitely buy it again. We were lucky enough to spend our entire lunch break pretty much free from cloud, but this was where our luck ended, the rest of the day would be spent with very short visibility. Those familiar with Kinder scout will know our next part of the journey was the northern edge, but unfortunately i didn’t get a lot of photographs due to the weather conditions, as to add to the cloud we also had intermittent rain showers.    The northern edge went by pretty uneventful, except for the odd slip on the rocks due to the rain, and with no real views to see we marched the whole length in almost one go, with just a couple of stops for a rest. I had been looking forward to showing Colin the views from the western edge once we reached it, but the clouds were strong and they were not going to give up the views lightly. So on we went towards the Kinder Downfall. It was at this point the weather went back to being clear then cloudy, all within about 5 minutes. So when it did clear, i made sure i got some photos and footage for my video and blog.  At around the Sandy Hays area, i developed a painful twinge in my right knee, and i was forced to take a break for a few minutes. The last day and a half of difficult walking with a full pack had taken its toll and this is the reason why my absence from walking began, though other reasons also exist… (which i wont get into here). Anyway after a short rest we carried on, and before long we made it to Kinder Downfall, where we decided that we would go as far as Kinder low before setting up for the night.  The day that had seemed never ending (in a good way might i add 🙂 ) was suddenly close to getting dark, so we quickly made our way to Kinder low and set up our Tarps near to the trig point. The weather was now really closed in and it was extremely damp in the air. We both eagerly got food on the go and relaxed for a while, safe and dry under our shelters. After an hour or two i noticed the air seemed to have cleared, and as i got out you could actually see the distant lights of the nearby cities. Sadly my phone isn’t up to taking photos at night, but we did manage a eerie photo of the kinder man later on as the clouds moved back in.  The next morning we were up at around 05:15, and the views were amazing. We had only been saying the day before we would love to see a cloud inversion, and as luck would have it, that’s exactly what we got. Immediately the cameras came out and it was photos and time lapses galore, and if you don’t normally watch the accompanying video, id definitely recommend you watch this one, as the morning views were spectacular (link at the bottom of this blog).   Unfortunately this scene only lasted around one hour before the clouds once again started to close back in on us, so before we were completely engulfed we decided to begin packing away.   Once packed we headed off on our way, but as the clouds were still so low and thick, we decided instead of following the whole edge back to Grindslow, we thought it best to follow the Pennine way back to the village Edale. This was a shame as we had both wanted to see the Woolpacks, but with such low visibility decided it would be better to see them another day.   The route was mainly down hill now and as we came out from the clouds we were soon at the top of Jacobs ladder, which is quite a knee busting steep rocky stairway.   With Jacobs ladder done it wasn’t long before the village of Edale came into view, this was now the final leg of the journey as our plan was to get the train home from the village station.  The village was a very welcome sight, as for me this was the end of a hard going three days of walking with full overnight gear. Arriving at the station we checked the times and saw we had some time to kill, so we had breakfast at the Penny pot cafe, which was very nice indeed.   so with food eaten and the train boarded, i shall end this blog here, we both had a really great time, and i hope to be making a return to the Peak District very soon, so watch this space, and i’ll do my best to get future work out on time 🙂

If you made it this far, thank you very much, a BIG thank you to everyone who has stayed with me in this quiet period, and also to the new ones who have joined me on the blog journey. Feel free to leave a comment, and i shall leave a link to the video that shows this journey below for anyone interested. Thanks again, and until next time goodbye 🙂

Here is the link to the video:

Kinder Scout Edge Walk

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