Saturday, 13 July 2013

Kinder Scout via Fair Brook

There was an Orpheus CC trip to North Wales to do the Croesor – Rhosydd Mine through trip this weekend and I had bought a bouyancy aid in preparation for it but after some consideration, we decided it may be better to leave this for another time as Karen's shoulder injury would make it possibly tricky.
We have been having a heatwave (official according to the Met Office) for the past week and today was again very hot with temperatures in the very high twenties as we parked in a small layby on the Snake Road near the Snake Inn.
We got our boots on and set off carefully down the busy main road until we reached a stile a few hundred metres away and thankfully left the traffic behind as we followed a path through the woods to a foot bridge crossing the River Ashop.
As we started following the path on the side of the Fair Brook as it headed towards the Kinder Scout plateau we spotted a group of kids wearing helmets and dressed in caving oversuits who were taking part in an outdoor activity involving following the course of the brook in the shallow water, clambering up the occasional rocky steps and deeper pools of water. It was very tempting to jump in and join them to cool off!
We soon reached the head of the small valley and were clambering over gritstone boulders until we arrived on the plateau edge where we found a shady spot by one of the scattered large boulders to have a sit down and cool off.
Having cooled off, we set off following a path along the edge overlooking the Fair Brook below and along Seal Edge.
At another small rocky outcrop we sat down to eat our lunch and then again continued along Seal Edge as far as the Seal Stones where we dropped down from the edge and followed a path which was steep to start with and then joined a narrow land rover track at some shooting butts.
This track dropped down gradually back to where Fair Brook joins the River Ashop near to the footbridge.
We crossed the bridge and again followed the path through the wood to the road-side stile. At the stile another oversuit-clad and helmet-wearing group of kids were coming through the stile to head for Fair Brook and among them we recognised fellow club member Callum.

We walked back to the car and after changing from walking boots, drove to Hathersage for a snack at the café at Outside.








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