Outdoor Discoveries

Revisiting ruggedness on the way from Hayfield to Edale

A previous posting on here mentioned the elongated break that I took from work during the summer of 2020. It also collated three longer hikes that took me through hills that line the boundary between Cheshire and Derbyshire. Perhaps wisely, for the sake of not overdoing the length of the piece, I omitted a hike that me over Kinder Scout that came the day after walking from Disley to Macclesfield. Yet, there is a slight link in that the bus conveying me from Macclesfield to Hayfield also passed through Whaley Bridge, possibly sowing the seeds for later hikes from there back to Macclesfield.

However, the Kinder Scout escapade had a few distinctions of its own. Firstly, this was the first hike since the onset of the pandemic that did not end with my walking or cycling back home. Another point was that it no longer felt feasible to use a 50 litre rucksack for day hikes. My attempts to make things less blatant than this attracted some amused comments from a passer-by, so I went and got a smaller Lowe Alpine item from The Climber Shop. Apart from a weekend ascent of Helvellyn and subsequent wandering near Callander and Stirling, and the trip to Paris in May of this year, the smaller Low Alpine pack has become my mainstay on countryside incursions.

By the time that I got on the receiving end of those remarks regarding how I was equipping myself, I already had got as far as the trail going along White Brow to the north of Kinder Reservoir. Recollections of the way there have needed to be rekindled from my memory banks, but the image of my leaving Hayfield village under grey skies and following a largely quiet section of the Pennine Bridleway has returned to me. The lack of activity around the campsite that I passed after leaving that trail is another fragment that helps top rebuild my route in my mind. Because of the lack of sun, photos were made infrequently, possibly because of how familiar the area is to me.

After Bowden Bridge, recall is again vague. However, just going along Kinder Road seems unlikely. Thus, the course more likely passed Hill Houses, The Cote, Booth and Farlands. There is another image from under grey skies that takes me around by Tunstead House and not far from Tunstead Clough Farm before reaching the others. That feels stronger than mere confabulation as I write these words, so I am going with that.

It would mean a crossing of the River Kinder beneath the reservoir dam that resonates with me because of the onward route to the flank of White Brow. From there, things become more memorable again, and there are photos to help too. This may have been familiar ground to me, but the novelty was not lost, either. After crossing Nab Brow, there was the matter of powering my way up through William Clough. My light load may have helped with this, making someone else comment on how well I was going.

Beyond William Clough, I met up with the Pennine Way. That was going to convey me to the top of Kinder Scout and around by its western edge. After the initial short pull up steeper inclines, it struck me that most of the ascent was on gentler gradients. That initial steepness was over quickly, much to my surprise; William Clough felt much more rugged in comparison. There were others about at this stage, yet the place felt none too crowded, and skies broke overhead to allow the sun to do its uplifting work on a tapestry of hardy grasses and wind-sculpted rocks.

Near Kinder Downfall, there was the option of following the old course of the Pennine Way towards Grindsbrook Clough, perhaps avoiding many of the people that I was to pass later in the day. The horror stories from bygone crossings and my lightweight state meant that I stayed within view of Kinder Reservoir instead.

As I grew closer to Edale Cross, it struck me that this was not going to feel like a quiet Monday around there. If I had designs, on following the Pennine Way down to Edale, they were scotched in favour of what I hoped to be quieter informal paths. As with many things with 2020, old experiences became poor predictors of then contemporary behaviour. Thus, I had to share the place with more people than I felt was ideal. It was a matter of making the best of it, and relishing any quieter stretches as I passed Edale Head, Pym Chair and Crowden Tower, some of these being part of nature’s gallery of rocky outcrops. Each formation seemed to tell a tale of millennia, weathered yet unyielding.

In some ways, the descent into Grindsbrook Clough was a wise choice; it thinned out the encounters with others to near nothing. The steepness of the initial stretches only would have helped to ensure that. This was light scrambling, with plenty of occasions for getting hands on intimacy with the gritstone slabs. Even with an abundance of cool, unyielding stone, keeping three points of contact hereabouts is a frequent necessity. It staggers me to think that the Pennine Way once went this way; there is plenty to remind one of nature’s raw beauty and the respect it commands.

Patient resolve was rewarded when the gradients eased. The skies were again packing with cloud cover, which would have foiled any ambition to improve on photos made in August 2001, if there even was one at that moment. Having a pleasant path to follow on the way to more bucolic surroundings was enough for me that afternoon.

Edale felt tranquil with less around it than I found on the edges of Kinder Scout; it prompts the question as to where they came from, but a rural car park or two might explain that. A quirk in the train timetable meant that I spent longer around the place than I was expecting. This proved to be a refuelling opportunity using some refreshments purchased from a kiosk near the train station.

While the day may have been cloudy much of the time, there was uplifting sunshine in the middle of the hike. This also was when I met more people, a discomfort in times of pandemic. Nevertheless, there were moments of treasured, sublime solitude too. These were steps, not just through a majestic and treasured landscape, but part of a journey through an ongoing global upheaval. Despite all the surrounding drama, there remains that ineffable something that calls us all to wander. Few things, it seems, can stop that.

Travel Arrangements

Bus service 60 from Macclesfield to Hayfield. Rail journey from Edale to Macclesfield with a change at Manchester Piccadilly