Kinder Scout

After the recent mild weather, today was frosty, clear and sunny. So when Karen said that Keith planned on coming to the Peak in order to move scaffolding tubes and clips to the current dig site in Water Icicle Close Cavern and she was going to help him, I decided the weather was just too good to miss the best conditions for walking on Kinder Scout.

This time I set off from Upper Booth with the temperature at -3.5 degrees C at 10:00. I followed the path along the the River Crowden and finally the enjoyable little scramble to arrive at the plateau of Kinder Scout.

As the weather was so clear, all the well-known landmarks were easily visible and I set off in a Northerly direction with my shadow in front until I reached the higher portion of the plateau from where I could see the large rocks forming what is known as Kinder Gates on wither side of the River Kinder leading to the waterfall at Kinder Downfall.

Now I just simply continued towards Kinder Gates making the odd detour to avoid the deepest groughs (channels cut into the peat) a bit like crossing a crevassed glacier but brown and green instead of white and blue plus not so serious if you ended up in the bottom of a grough instead of a crevasse.

Soon I reached a tributary of the River Kinder and followed the sandy river bed, soon passing between the Kinder Gates, taking care at the frequent icy sections.

Very soon I reached the top of the rocky amphitheatre surrounding the waterfall of Kinder Downfall where I stopped on a convenient rock to eat lunch.

Once I had eaten my sandwich, I continued on my way following the plateau edge with views across the Kinder reservoir and across to Cheshire and further.

As I reached the large rocky formation of Edale Rocks, I had a another short break to finish off my flask of coffee before continuing on down the path known as Jacob's Ladder until I arrived back where I started after an excellent walk.