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 |
 |
| Mam Tor Trig Point |
 |
| Looking along the route to Lose Hill |
 |
| Win Hill in the distance |
 |
 |
| 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.
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 |
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| Above and below, The Old Buxton Road! |
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| Mam Tor from the Blue John Caverns Car Park |
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| 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
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A nice read Mike
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