Castleton’s North Ridges Sunday 19th February 2012

I’ll start this blog with a conversation a question from Chris, a fellow hillwalker, “How will you start the blog?
My reply, was, “Well, from the beginning.”

But where was the beginning.....

Chris responded with “Would that be with the puncture?

To which I quickly replied “Yes”, followed quickly, “Ah, but the snow we had back home was really the beginning.”

The actual beginning was my posting a reply to one of the ‘What are you doing this weekend’ threads on a walking forum, where I posted a brief route description. I received a couple of Private Messages (PM’s), one of which was from Chis.

The real beginning of the day, I got up, as you do, looked out of the window and saw snow on the road outside!

I thought crampons, ice axe and all that goes with it, then I thought, ah, problem, if we’ve had snow, how bad would it be on the journey or even on the route I’d chosen to walk.

So I text Chris to let him know, we’d had snow and I may be a little late.

Fortunately, the snow disappeared almost as soon as I got on the motorway and things just went nice and steady from there. Or so I thought.

I arrived in Castleton, headed towards Winnats Pass, to meet up with Chris in the National Trust Car Park and Picnic Area to the south west of Mam Tor.

Then the fun started, the tyre pressure warning light came on as I was driving up through Winnats Pass. That meant one thing, a puncture....

So I pulled up as soon as I could, in the car park to the Blue John Caverns, changed the wheel and phoned Chris just to let him know I was close by and would be with him very soon.

Anyway, that didn’t deter from the day.

It great to meet up with Chris, our last attempt was thwarted by the torrential rain on Kinder Scout around late May last year.

While I got my boots on and kit together, I shown Chris a map of the route I had been looking at, which I will confess at this stage, I took the idea from someone else a couple of weeks ago on a forum I can’t remember who, but thank you for he inspiration.

Chris suggested doing the route the opposite way round, with a very valid argument, that the trudge up Lose Hill from Castleton, would a be a bit of a slog.

So we set off up Mam Tor, stopping quite a few times, as we did en-route, admiring the views on such a gloriously sunny day and taking photos.


Heading up Mam Tor


Winnats Pass
As we reached the summit of Mam Tor, we took in the views, particularly the view across to the Kinder Plateau. Then carried on down towards Hollins Cross, wishing those we passed a good day.


Mam Tor Trig Point
 
Looking along the route to Lose Hill

Win Hill in the distance

Looking over towards the Kinder Plateau

Looking towards Hollins Cross

As we reached Hollins Cross, we looked back towards Mam Tor, looking at the old Buxton Road, which was closed back in 1979, after numerous attempts to stop the subsidence.

Looking back to Mam Tor

Looking back at the old Buxton Road

Again, once we reached the top of Hollins Cross, another opportunity to take in the views, across to Kinder, Mama Tor and also across Castleton and the Hope Valley.

From Hollins Cross, we continued on to Back Tor. As we started to ascend Back Tor, there were quite a few people heading down towards us. Not that it created a problem.


Looking up Back Tor

The ascent to Back Tor

Once a top Back Tor, another opportunity to take in the views, across to Kinder, over Castleton, the Hope Valley and also, Mam Tor.

It provided a good opportunity to look at the short but steep ascent to Back Tor.

We then continued on to Lose Hill. Now this is one of many hills in the Peaks I’ve never ascended, so it was a first.

The path to Lose Hill

Again, at the summit, we took in the views, and also met up with a rather friendly solitary sheep. The sheep was really only after food and as it was around lunch time, I guess it was being ever hopeful.

Mam Tor, Rushup and the Kinder Plateau from Lose Hill

So, this ever hopeful sheep, thought my Kestrel portable weather thingy was food and start to try and nibble it!

Never mind, it soon realised it wasn’t food.

We continued down Lose Hill, initially aiming for Castleton via Crimea Farm, where at around here, we took a wrong turn.

Part way down, we stopped to take in the view, looking back at where had walked from and along the ridge, taking yet more photos. This was the point where I really should have checked the map, because hat’s where we should have turn off the path.

This was the view at the point where I should have checked the map, because our intended path was right in front of us.

So instead, we carried on, chatting away, enjoying the day, and heading towards Lose Hill End and Townhead Bridge.

As we got to Townhead, just before Townhead Bridge, that’s where we realised we had missed our turn.

Still, a quick relocation on the map soon got us right and we plotted the route back towards Castleton.

As we took this alternative route, we saw some pretty good views of all the ridges we covered on the way out to Lose Hill. The only real problem being, there were too many spindly trees in the way to grab a half decent photograph.

The ridge we had walked along

Undeterred, we arrived in Castleton, stopping at Spiral Bridge for a brief lunch stop.
We continued in to Castleton, chatting away and enjoying the views, while we headed towards Winnats Pass.

From here, another route change was implemented. We carried on along the old Buxton Road instead of going through Winnats Pass, following the old road all the way through to the Blue John Caverns (where I changed my wheel earlier in the morning), all the way back to the car park where we originally met.

The sun catching the land slips at the foot of Mam Tor

Above and below,
The Old Buxton Road!



Mam Tor from the Blue John Caverns Car Park

Hollins Cross, Back Tor and Lose Hill
from the Blue John Caverns Car Park

It was a thoroughly enjoyable day with great company and great opportunity to share ideas of future routes to put on tick lists or must do lists.

Chris, the journey home with the space saver spare wheel wasn’t as bad as I feared it would be. Having done a journey with a space saver on the front before, which made steering an braking extreme fun, I was glad this time it was the back wheel.....

Thanks again Chris for a smashing day, great conversation and great ideas.

Thank you for reading,
Peak Rambler

1 comment: