This was going to be a new one – I’ve never braved a long 12 hour night shift at work followed immediately by a Winter walk
Dad (Barry) had mentioned he was heading up past Chesterfield on Wednesday to walk on one of the Edges, and having missed a few chances to do a few Winter works with the old geezer I jumped at the chance to head out with him, even if it meant walking tired.
I say ‘old geezer’ – Barrys 76 I reckon this year, but just saying that makes me blink and shake my head in wonder – he has the constitution of someone 20 years younger and a few times thats caught me out – once when dragging him up in heavy snow onto Kinder Scout (we turned back) and quite often when in the passenger seat of his dinky little Citroen C2 on the way to these walks, when expecting that we might go a little faster than the standard 30mph he seems to do eveyrwhere these days .. Other than these few blips he’s ridiculously chipper and puts me to shame with my dodgy shoulder and achey legs.
I rolled back out of bed at about 10AM after a far too-short 2 hours of sleep. Dad had arrived just as Rachael was off out for her 11 o’clock shift and I could hear Bess our young Labrador going into raptures that ‘Poppa’ has arrived to give her fuss and cuddles.
After a quick cuppa and a troll around to find socks, a waterproof and a battery for the Camera we headed off for the ten minute journey that would get us to Curbar Gap and the start of our two or three hour walk first along Curbar and Froggatt, then back along the slightly higher White Edge.
Curbar Gap carpark was half full and looked to be getting busier by the second – a good thing – We booted up, put on an extra layer as it was noticeably colder than the edge of Chesterfield and headed for the edge, with the early morning falling away leaving bright sunlight interspersed with some snow-laden but fluffy clouds
Looking back iinto suddenly bright sunlight, the view was as stunning as ever..
On reaching the highest point, the view of the Higher Edges, along with Kinder Scout and Win Hill was rather good
Descending, we decided to head or a beer at the Grouse Inn after a short detour to the very edge Froggatt where you can get some cracking views of the Hope Valley, with Grindleford right at your feet including the old Chapel and the Ranger Briefing Centre
The Grouse Inn is one of those Pubs that relies entirely on passing trade – it has absolutely now houses remotely close to it, but after heading off Froggatt Edge and heading over the couple of fields that separate the Pubs site on the road with the National Trust land on the Edge, I was surprised to see full the car park was with cards. Walking in, the Pubs lounge was full of people eating lunch – Most of them customers who’d driven in, but still also a few like us with muddy points and slightly windblown looks to them.
Its a good Pub, though the food looks expensive – Knowing we already had food packed up, we decided to stick to Guinness which is easily a meal in itself. As always in Derbyshire pubs the Guinnes was good and we headed up to White Edge feeling all the better for the pints-worth of alcohol coursing through our veins.
Reaching the hole in the wall between White Edge-proper and the Longshaw moorland, I took a photo back down towards Hope Valley, then further along the Edge another photo of the Grouse Inn at the side of the road that we had ust crossed
Walking up to the Trig point, I spent a while looking around for the old shelter that used to be up there – the rectangle in the ground is there but it appears the the shelter is now gone – possibly a good idea as the last time I was there it attracted rubbish and there was always the smell of toilet coming from it in good weather. To get shelter from the biting wind, we dropped down over the south side of the moor by about twenty metres where we got a got a good view of wild Deer
Food finished, we took the final short walk back down to the Car Park, stopping only as the sound of something helicopter and military got closer. The battery on my camera by the then was close to flat, I didn’t look to even try and get a short – a shame really as the source of the sound – an Apache Longbow just rose above Curbar Gap past the lowering sun for a perfect shot. which I missed..
roypollard 