One of my latest walks was on Saturday when I did a Ranger patrol up again at Fairholmes, starting off with a fast walk down the east track of Derwent and Howden Reservoir before turning up Westend and then Ditch Clough towards the spectacular Alport Castles.
The start of the Patrol wasn’t much of a chore as it passed the Derwent Dam which for a lot of the Winter has been overflowing with water from the reservoir. I got a good view from trees at the side of the west track, followed soon after by an equally stunning view of even more water coming over the Howden dam further up the Valley. Despite the amount of water in all three expanses of water, the area was pretty tranquil and not really that busy.
A shame as there was lots of Winter sun – I always find it strange that people seem to insist on descending on the Peak Distrct ‘honeypots’ on Sundays whereas some places on Saturdays are literally deserted.
Climbing Ditch Clough, the air got colder – the wind stronger and stronger – a strange phenomena when you think that I’m already in quite a high valley that the reservoirs sit in, but in the winter the tops and edges can be significantly colder than the bottoms of the valleys, even if theres only a few hundred metres difference in elevation
Rising out of the tree line looking right, Bleaklow came into view with Grinah stones showing quite clear on the horizon.
I’ve always meant to head up there one evening to just hang around in the dark to get some starry shots and maybe listen out for any strange noisy that ghostly aircraft may be making – Its a strange thing to do but in the past decade or so people seem to have started preying off stories of aircraft crash sites and trying to introduce scary stories where they don’t exactly exist – It’d be nice to go up there just to be able to wrinkle my nose and say ‘nah’
Reaching the top of Ditch Clough, I topped out with an amazing view of the Alport Castles, and ‘the Tower’ a big lump of landslip that wouldn’t be out of place in a fantasy film
Despite there being no real snow remaining this side of Snake Pass, there was still a bit on Kinder Scout, along with a thick bank of cloud rising from the bog. It made me wonder if the definite chill at the Tower wasn’t being generated by the snow on Kinder.
The Alport Valley is a stunning place – it has a small farming community, is a primary route for walkers to access Bleaklow from Fairholmes and the Upper Derwent Valley and is quite intensely managed for Grouse shooting, despite there being little real shooting being done over the last few years.
Its a place where Peregrine Falcons have succesfully reared young in a couple of places .. and if you are lucky male Hen Harriers can be seen ghosting down to the lower areas of the Valley to seek out prey. Harriers are the bane of my life – I see them, tell my older, more expert compatriots and almost every time have to ignore scornful glances as if yet again they disbelieve either their existence or my sighting of them
In the past its been a place of tragedy. Less than forty years ago, young lives were lost when a group of scouts died of hypothermia less than a few miles from safety as they descended from Bleaklow in awful winter conditions encountered on the Four Inns Walk. I often sit at my wall overlooking the iconic Tower and try and imagine how desperate it must have been for these men, hardly out of childhood – the best of young people with aspirations, good outlooks and solid backgrounds who died in a place that up there you realise is nowhere near as tamed, or civilised as we all may think.
I sat and had a chicken wrap at the bit of wall that lots of people use to shelter at when there’s a bit of wind at the Castles (..its ALWAYS windy up there) and watched a large Ramblers group walk past about three times while their leader tried to work out where they were going / coming from / doing. Sometimes its amusing that people will put their trust in someone who maybe isn’t entirely familiar in the route they’re on … sometimes its not. One of a volunteer Rangers roles is to have a chat with people, be friendly and say hi to folks – it often works to start to put across a point or say something useful such as advice that there’s livestock ahead and they may want to keep their dog closer – With walking groups its often tricky as people are usually head-down in conversation and don’t want an interloper interrupting them. In circumstances when you know a groups a bit off route and struggling, you can’t just step in and take charge – people are grown adults and will normally sort themselves out eventually.
Finishing my lunch, I headed towards Hagg Guide Post – the air was getting colder by the minute and new cloud was scudding over from the north – I stopped and took a few arty photos but by then the light was getting worse, so I grabbed an atmospheric shot looking down the Valley before heading down what we call the Meteor track for base.
The Meteor in question is the remains of a fighter aircraft that crashed close to the path – its pilot successfully parachuting nearby and returning to the site a few decades later to inspect the site and maybe comment at how quickly the trees have ground around the crater that is still just about discernible at the impact site. People have robbed out what remained of the plane wreck – its a shame that they couldn’t be a little less selfish and leave whats there for future visitors to look at..
roypollard 