Saturday 23rd July and Saturday 10th September 2022
Back in July the men in my church got together for a walk in the Peak District, which I had been asked to lead and, together with the organiser of the event, we decided on Kinder Scout, mainly because five years earlier the guys had walked up Mam Tor, on the southern edge of Edale and it seemed appropriate to do the hill on the other side. A quick search on the internet revealed a walk that seemed the best route, but it felt to me as if things quickly went wrong with the walk. Firstly, people were late getting to the car park in Edale and the slowest of all was the organiser, who was almost an hour late, so for me the walk had already started badly and the problems just kept on mounting. I was so frustrated with the problems on this walk that I did the walk again, in September, with a colleague from work and we got to Edale significantly earlier than the guys from my church could manage. The route started at the Old Nags Head in Grindsbrook Booth, which is also the starting point of the Pennine Way, up the road before crossing the delightful, wooded valley of Grinds Brook and through farmland past some sheep. Already, we had great views towards the hills and the gritstone edge that looked enticing but we ignored the paths that head straight up and kept on the clear path that follows the stream up the valley. At this point in July the sun was shining, but that would not last, and in September the clouds were so low you couldn’t even see the edge, but that also would not last.
Slowly, we made our way up Grindsbrook Clough on a very rough and stony path that my colleague and I had no problems with, but some of the guys from church struggled because of age and injury. This was the route that I took on my first ever walk up Kinder Scout, back in 1998, but subsequently I have always approached the hill from the north so I had forgotten what this path was like. We had billed the walk as being tough and challenging, but this failed to deter several people who really shouldn’t have been on the walk. They had to stop many times during the ascent so it took us a long time to get up the valley, and since it was already twelve by the time we finally managed to reach the top, we stopped to have our lunch during which it started to rain. My colleague and I did not stop for long at that point as we soon made our way along the flagstones that mark the path around the Kinder Plateau while the weather gradually improved, but a couple of months earlier it continued to rain. At the top of Crowden Brook, the prescribed route leaves the rock-strewn edge and crosses the featureless plateau, but I did not want to attempt that in poor weather as navigation is difficult at the best of times, so I decided that I would keep the guys beside the southern edge of the plateau past the weathered rocks of Crowden Tower and the Wool Packs.
In better weather, my colleague and I headed off across the plateau following a path beside a dry channel, but soon the path became faint and with many paths branching off route selection was tricky. Coming towards us were two guys who swore to us that we were heading in the wrong direction, back towards Crowden Clough, and they would not be persuaded even when I pointed out that Mam Tor could still be seen behind us, on the horizon. In the end, they headed off in the direction they thought was correct and I continued in the direction we had been going, but I was constantly checking our position on the O.S. Maps app. The ground was now very wet with little or no path to follow, and we soon got wet feet and trousers while in the middle of a plateau with no sign in any direction of anything but the featureless moor. With careful consultation of the O.S. Map we eventually found a stream that would eventually become the River Kinder and so we followed that and eventually reached the Kinder Gates, which is a grand name for nothing more than a collection of rocks. Soon after passing the Kinder Gates we saw that the two guys who thought we were going in the wrong direction had realised their own error and were now following us. When they caught up they apologised and I replied that it is very easy to get lost on the Kinder Plateau, which justifies my decision to avoid it with the guys from church.
Eventually we reached the waterfall known as the Kinder Downfall and by this time the sun had come out and was greeting us with fabulous views west towards Manchester, so we stopped within sight of the trickle going over the waterfall and had our lunch. After eating we set off along the Pennine Way beside the western edge of the Kinder Plateau with gorgeous weather that made the walk along the rocky path an absolute delight as it took us over the Red Brook and up to the popular trig point at Kinder Low. After pausing to take a few pictures we continued along the Pennine Way, past Edale Rocks and joined the route that I had taken with the guys from church in July. The path now gradually descended the hillside to the top of the steep descent known as Jacob’s Ladder, but in July I took some of the slowest people onto the bridlepath that avoids it, though it is so rocky I am unsure what benefit it actually gave us. As we headed down into Edale, along a wide track, I stayed with two old gentlemen who were bringing up the rear until we reached the farmyard at Upper Booth where the Pennine Way climbs again to cross the hillside below Broadless-Bank Tor. However, it soon became obvious that the other guys had missed the turning and a quick phone call confirmed that they had stayed on the road.
This was very annoying and showed that I had completely failed to keep everyone together. I told everyone to follow the road back to the car park while I continued on the Pennine Way, ironically, taking the two oldest members of the group over the hill and back down into Grindsbrook Booth. My colleague moaned about this climb, which is a valid point at the end of a tough walk over Kinder Scout, though we were rewarded with fantastic views up and down Edale before descending slowly down to Grindsbrook Booth. I am glad that I did the walk again as I felt that the walk in July had been a long stream of problems from the delayed start, the slow progress, the bad weather and then finally everyone going the wrong way. The walk with my colleague was much better with improving weather that showed off the walk and it was a pity that we didn’t have that weather for the guys from church. However, that walk also showed how a walk over Kinder Scout can easily be done wrong as navigation across the plateau is notoriously difficult as those two guys we encountered up there discovered.
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