We had woken up on
Wednesday morning to 6 inches of snow which had fallen overnight and
I stayed at home.
By Thursday morning a
lot of it had gone, at least at lower levels such as Matlock, but
there was still a bit laying on the ground in the Dark Peak area as
we parked at a small layby on the minor road at Hollow Meadows just
off the A57.
From here we followed
a muddy track with quite a bit of snow laying in deep drifts along
the drystone walls running alongside the track, and after passing a
farmhouse at Moscar Cross Farm, the track turned south passing Moscar
Lodge and across the busy A57 just on the outer reached of the city
of Sheffield.
After crossing a
wooden stile, our route followed a narrow, peaty path across the
moorland to the Stanage End area of Stanage Edge.
There was an amazing
amount of snow laying in deep drifts at the foot of this famous
gritstone escarpment and we walked for a while along a rough path
below the crag until we found a gently-sloping steam flowing between
some large rock buttresses, which we followed to gain the top of the
crag.
From here we could see
all around into the distance despite the heavily overcast sky and we
followed another path along the top of the crag as far as the area
crossed by rough track call the Long Causeway near the High Neb
section of the crag. It was around here that we spotted a couple of
the flat boulders which had a small basin carved out of the rock with
a couple of small drainage channels, which were made to provide a
source of drinking water for the Grouse. There had been a talk given
in Winster Village Hall very recently by a Professor Hey about the
Peak District Moors and he had described these drinking basins of
which there were over a hundred, all numbered individually.
We stopped in the lee
of a small buttress on the top of Stanage Edge to have a drink and
then continued on to the intersection of Long Causeway with the crag.
We left Stanage Edge
behind and followed the track of Lang Causeway, being passed by a
small convoy of off-road vehicles coming the opposite way.
We paused at the
landmark formed by the wooden pole erected at some boulders known as
Stanedge Pole, to take photos and then continued along the track
which passed a small coniferous wood before arriving at a rough,
potholed road running alongside the higher of the three Redmire
Reservoirs.
As the road passed a
small car park on a bend, we broke off and followed a public footpath
which followed up a sloping and muddy path between two drystone-walls
and then after a stile into open heathland with views to Sheffield in
the distance.
The footpath crossed
the heathland for some distance then crossed a conduit supplying the
reservoirs by a stone bridge.
We stopped again and
sat on one of the bridge parapets to have another drink.
Afterwards,we
continued on our way to arrive at the A57 once again after a
kilometre or so, which we crossed and then after crossing the road,
climbed over the wall using a stile and as a hare ran away from us
some tens of metres away, we followed a small path up the sloping
ground to arrive at the narrow road we had parked on earlier next to
Crawshaw Lodge.
We turned left and
followed the road for nearly two kilometres to arrive back at the
layby where we parked the car.
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| One of the many hand-carved drinking bowls for the Grouse |
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| Mr Grouse |
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| Stanedge Pole |
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| "Convoy" of Four-Wheel Drive vehicles |
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