Part 2: Day One

Pennine Way day had arrived and I woke up excited at six. As the missus was fast asleep I got up and made a cup of tea. There’s never any point, in my experience, getting up early for something, you just take twice as long getting ready and end up being late. My drooping eyelids persuaded me to obey the beckoning bed and I dozed for another hour.

I took my usual train to Edale at 10.45 from Manchester. They only run every two hours during the week and I wouldn’t have been able to get a cheap day return on the earlier one. After half an hour squirming on a seat uncomfortable enough for a holiday jet, having my bones rattled by rolling stock which should have been allowed to retire years ago the obvious thought came to me: I’d only needed a one-way ticket so could have caught the 08.45 for the same price.

Edale Village, path to Grindsbrook Clough to the right, Jacob's Ladder
in the distance and Grindslow Knoll in the middle distance on the right

There’s a long tunnel before you arrive in the Vale of Edale and you can never be sure of the weather you’ll be walking in until you come out the other end. It turned out a nice, fine, warm, ice cream eating sort of day again. I managed to ignore the two choc-ice selling cafes in the village, I was eager to be off, but not too eager to ignore the car park toilets though. I knew it was going to be too busy to have a quiet pee against a sheep until at least past the Downfall.

My first attempt on the Pennine Way began from the start/finish line of the Nag’s Head at 11.45 on 2^nd June 2006. Fifty yards into it there is a sunken lane which is a meeting place for midges in the evening and a spot favoured by gangs of flies for ambush during the day. These are of the suicidal variety, desperate to be eaten, I had to keep my mouth tightly closed so it wouldn’t start off the sequence of events entailing me having to look for a spider to swallow, then…well, you know the rest.

A quarter of a mile from the village I stopped for a break. I know this was a little early but someone’s put a brand new bench there and as I knew there wasn’t another until Torside, fifteen miles further on, I felt I ought to use it. I needed to sit down anyway, it was hot enough to take my legs off.

View from the bench

Zip-off trousers are a wonderful invention. They are a real boon to every spindle legged British male walker desperate to feel a few
rays on his legs the moment the sun pops its smiling face through the clouds. They are also great for the manufacturers who can charge an extra £20 for cutting the legs in half and joining them together again with a couple of 50 pence zips.

In doing the Pennine Way (in this direction) the first hill which gets in your way is Kinder Scout. You won’t have to worry about finding it. If the Pennines are the backbone of England the Peak District must be the coccyx. Kinder Scout is the wide bit at the top.There is a choice of three routes up it: Grindsbrook Clough and Grindslow Knoll are just as they sound, northern, gritty and hard. Jacob’s Ladder on the other hand is magical and mystical. You stand at the bottom and angels hover above you plucking their celestial Stratocasters whose heavenly notes bear you effortlessly upward to the top before the drum solo begins. It is a possibility, however, that this is a false memory, created by an exertion induced flashback. Even so the Jacob’s Ladder route is still the easiest way up, particularly if you use the zigzag path on the left, kept there for sheep and cyclists, instead of the steps. This still leaves you with the killer bit at the end though, there’s just no way of avoiding it.

The Vale of Edale was heavily wooded
until this farmer took up wood carving

While you’re in the area, when you get to the top, instead of turning right at the first signpost you see you might like to carry straight on for the couple of hundred yards to Edale Cross. It’s no great shakes but it’s worth a quick look at and you don’t have to retrace your steps. There is a gate next to the cross and following the path by the side of the wall you can’t go wrong to the trig point on Kinder Low.

A pleasant cooling breeze made it an excellent day for walking and I had a song in my heart and Hendrix in my head as I skipped along in my scarpas towards the Downfall. There was nothing like the numbers about there were the other day but it was busy enough. I'd probably said hello to about ninety people I didn’t know by the end of the day.

It didn’t seem too long before I was trudging over the flagstones on Featherbed Moss. Once you’ve left the view of the rather majestic sweeping slopes of Kinder Scout behind this is a very boring couple of miles. I occupied myself by looking out for any bones which might have been raised to the surface by the dry weather. I would have thought there must have been a fair few ramblers in the 60s and 70s lost to the bog before they laid the flags. Looking at some of the quagmires the paving goes over, nasty pieces of work even in the dry, I wouldn’t like to imagine what it was like after heavy rain back then.

The Devil's Dike; look out for Satan worshiping lesbians

If you cross the Snake Pass road and there are no parked cars it’s 3 o’clock in the morning, then it’s an easy incline up to Bleaklow. I believe a lot of people have difficulty finding Bleaklow Head, which I can’t quite understand. A good tip is to follow the path. It is more troublesome finding the way down the other side. I'd advise a quick compass check here as the better defined path, which is also marked by a pile of stones goes east, ending up at the end of Longdendale trail cycle track. I’d taken this wrong turn before and incredibly did it again, luckily recognising my mistake before I’d gone any distance. The correct way leads over the scary heights of Torside Clough.

Heights don’t bother me much but I always feel a little uneasy on the highest part of this path. I heard on some radio programme or other that there are two sorts of fear of heights: the fear of falling and the fear of jumping. I definitely come down on the side of jumpers. Walking by the side of a drop I will always get the urge to jump. As I know I’m not going to I don’t have any fear. For some reason along Torside Clough I can’t make up my mind between falling and jumping. It’s a real worry what to do. I find it’s best to look at the boats (if they’re out) on the reservoir and worry about breaking a leg during the very steep descent at the end.

By the time I reached the car park at Crowden it was 9 o’ clock, I couldn’t believe it had taken me so long. I hadn’t made an effort to rush but apart from taking quite a few photos I hadn’t dawdled either, or taken an hour off for lunch. At home at a quarter to ten I was too tired to eat much but managed a shower so I wouldn’t stick to the sheets and then that bed beckoned again.