I’ve just been looking through my old hand-written route books. I have hand-written reports of days on the mountain going back forty years to 1983. I’m in the process of typing them all up and posting them online, here at the plateroom28 blog, in the page Forty Years of Mountains. There’s quite a lot there to read. I am influenced by the writing of the great Scots mountaineer and early environmentalist W.H Murray (1913-1996). As a youth, I obtained a very old copy of his first book “Mountaineering in Scotland”, and deliberately copied his style – though perhaps not his grace – in writing trip reports.
We travel here to the Peak District on a Royal Wedding day. But which one – the reader can be the judge. Two of us left Edale about 10.30a.m and ran off up Grindsbrook. As we neared the top, a rain shower turned heavy, and we waited as it drove down-valley, a grey stain along the skyline.
The peat hags were steaming gently in bright sunshine as we moved over the flat and desolate sea of heather. Up here on Kinder, the flatness envelopes you. We arrived at the “summit”, more of a gentle watershed marked by a cairn, and from there, navigated by reference to the Holme Moss TV transmitter tower, a tall thin mast, its warning lights a-flashing periodically, some 16km to the north. Crowden Head was replaced by the dry bed of the Kinder River, which led us to the Downfall. As we lunched at the Downfall, large and sturdy sheep appeared, until around fifteen of them stood around us patiently waiting for titbits. Black clouds swooped by, darkening the fresh blue skies, soaking the good citizens of Hayfield far below.
From Kinder Downfall, north, followed closely by another line squall. Swiftly, as the skies grew dimmer, we sought shelter under a block of gritstone and waited for the squall to pass. It blew itself out after a dozen minutes or so, and we continued, now again in warm sunshine, advancing along a gentle scarp, past the white front of the Snake Inn far below, past the steep Seal Stones path downwards. We arrived at trig point 1937′ and rested for a while in warm summer sunshine. In the distance, Win Hill was a square grey top. We followed paths downhill through heather past crumbling outcrops, onto the lower moor, Crookstone Hill. In the distance, Ladybower reservoir was visibly empty. As we walked, there were a few mutters of suitably distant thunder. Along the moor, great clouds of blue and grey heaped up behind us, motivating us to hurry. Shelter was far ahead, in the woods at the edge of the reservoir.
A dense squall rushed past on our left, thunder began to crackle, and lightning fork cloud-to-cloud and onto the surrounding tops. Heavy rain began to fall. Lightning flashed again and the rain turned to hail. We flung ourselves into a ditch, hiding our heads from the hail, and then dashed for cover behind the shelter of a stone wall. Hail fell…and when it was over, the world was white like winter. It was amazing to behold. We walked in deep cold past a group of terrified pony-trekkers, their mounts as scared as any of them, down to Hope Cross and along. Fresh clouds gathered, and we tarried a while, hiding from the real risk of being struck by lightning.
Clouds back of us, we continued down the track to Hope. Hail came again, almost painful as it battered our legs, heads and backs. Water ripped at the track, a veritable flash flood, and we were grateful to leap into a Land Rover when a lift was offered. Being driven through the hail-covered lanes to Hope, we reflected that this was the most startling thunderstorm we’d seen for some time.
Plateroom 28 