I awoke early when the Gods decided to start throwing water and wind around at 0330 and I was kept awake till at least 0500, which is my usual awaking/getting up time. Somehow I managed to get back to sleep and only woke again at around 0730 realising that I'd yet to shower, shave, dress, take Tikka for her morning constitutional and then feed her, not to mention myself, all by no later than 0830; which would give me time to drive to Castleton [by 0910] and still have a small amount of free float for travel hold ups. Yeah right... that was blown then. Somehow I managed to complete my tasks and get there for 0910, but I've no idea how... the queue of drivers behind me on the journey testified that I was hardly speeding... this was about the time I realised that I'd turned into a Sunday driver... of course I explain to myself that I need to look after the old girl...
Steve explained that we were going to walk up to the top of this large hill on the horizon and then track along the ridge, which was beyond where we could currently see; I must have looked concerned because he cheered me up with 'But don't worry, it's one of the areas most popular walks'. In my mind I reminded myself where my asthma drugs were and how quickly I could get to them...
I leant two new words today within a matter for feet from our start point; "ginnel", meaning a walled alleyway, and "snicket", meaning partially vegetated alleyway or cut through. So after walking though the ginnel we were off on to the dales and heading towards Mam Tor. The weather wasn't much better than at 4am this morning and the cloud were low over the hills and it stayed like this until around half way through our walk; it was mizzly the whole time too. This meant the proper camera stayed in my rucksack and I made good with the Samsung S3 mini instead for most of the day.
Leaving the first few dales we were on to a former road which we'd follow for most of the way up the south side of Mam Tor. It seems that until the late 1970's this was one of the main roads between the valleys and despite many landslides and repairs the death nail to it was the one of 1979, when various sections fell away by 2m [8ft] and more. Understandably it became unviable to carry out such extreme civil engineering each year and it was closed. Looking at some of the torn sections of road now, which at around head height when standing on the lower sections, the numerous thick layers of asphalt look like sedimentary rocks, with the original Roman age cobbles at the base.
At the crest of the road, which now served as a route to the hill top cafe from the north side of the valley, we returned to the dale through a gate and headed to the summit. The path was made out by wide flag stones, which in the mizzly weather meant they were only slightly less slippery than if ice covered. We kept to the grass.
View from Mam Tor towards the south
View back towards Mam Tor from Hollis Cross showing part of the winding former road middle left.
The wind was pretty extreme up there that day; at Lose Hill we both stood on the north edge and fell into the wind and did our Matrix moves; fortunately I think no one saw us. Tikka was fascinated by wide open spaces and continually ran to the north edge of the path and looked out across the valley below; it was rather a cute stance that I'd like to have caught in a picture, but I was too busy trying to stay upright myself.
The walk down from Lose Hill was a bit steep in places and my knees were really beginning to hurt. I was quite pleased to reach the bottom and sit down for a scone and coffee with Steve as we talked about a plan for next week.
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