An Impromptu Nip up Crowden Clough

I found myself with an hour or so to spare and was camping at Upper Booth campsite, so took the opportunity to explore somewhere I have been wanting to explore for a while. This is my mini adventure.

Tent was pitched and everything set for the night. I found myself with some time free. I wondered if this might be the case and had mentally planned for this but was unsure if it would happen. When it does then choices to be made. The old me would have probably not entertained the idea, would have stayed, just in case. The newer me, the one I am finding again, was really up for the adventure. So me and Pip set off, travelling light and fast was the plan. Just enough for safety. No luxuries. I feel that this also adds to the sense of excitement.

Pip waiting patiently, as usual, earlier in the day.

Dogs are good at this. Pip just gets up and is ready. No messing about with footwear, spare coat, will it rain, will it be cold on top, where are we going, should we take some snacks, water, 1st aid kit? Sometimes we just need to be more dog, trust in our instincts and know that it will be all ok. (I did take a waterproof and some water). Can’t quite be totally dog.

We set off up by the side of the stream. I was moving quickly, for me, and wanting to get into the right head space. Wanting to feel the landscape and feel at ease moving through. This often means I have to move a little slower, to appreciate the path, the trees, the water, the feel of the place. To be able to listen and hear. To look around and see, not just look - I have written about his before. If I go too fast then, things are missed, too slow and I would not have enough time. Also as I had been out all day already I felt that I was already in this place to some extent. It is easy to switch into this mode and feel more aware of the area you are moving in.

I was excited to be doing this and heading up onto the Kinder Plateau, discovering this route. The air was still and warm. There was cloud covering the plateau. No wind, just the noise from the stream, flies buzzing and my breath in my body. Feeling my body moving faster and everything starting to wake up after a day of slowness. It always feels good to move over this sort of ground. You have to be aware of your footsteps but also allow your body to move. To have trust that is it will serve you. That years of this sort of walking has made muscle memories so they know how to respond to shifts in terrain and feels under foot.

There is always something to see. Trees growing sides ways out of the stream bank. I wonder how they maintain this position without collapsing in? Where do the roots go? Something to hear. The water rushing over the rocks. Sheep in the distance. Some walkers coming down the path ahead of me. Chatting and laughing as they come closer. They have had a good day and they are full of the joys a big day out brings. They pass by and I move up out of their way. Their dog trying to get a closer inspection of Pip, but she is not interested and goes the long way round up and over the bank.

The main path disappears behind us as we move up higher into the stream bed and onto the moor. The gradient steepens and grassy fields give way to rock, grass, heather and bilberry. The path is still distinct but now single track, grassy, the sandy, worn path now gone. I have to watch a bit more closely and my gaze comes a little closer. I have to stop and look around rather than look on the move. The view down the valley is opening up. I don’t often see the Edale valley from this way round. I am usually looking into this space from the Great Ridge and it is good to see if from this side. Mam Tor and Lose Hill way off in the distance. Back Tor a rocky step along the ridge.

The stream narrows and waterfalls start to appear. Rocky steps along the path that I have to start to scramble around. Pools under the falls, tress over hanging. I love these little places. The places where we looked for fairies when the children were younger and their sense of magic and wonder was still very evident. Not yet taken away from them by school and peer pressure. But we still believe, we still look and hope for a glimpse of some magic.

These little paths, we dropped off the main path and followed the stream more closely. Lots of little nooks for Pip to explore. Scent of recently departed occupants still visible on the air and land, building the picture on her nose map. She is darting around over the boulders and into the bracken. Small clumps of heather, still purple dot the green and increasingly more brown landscape. Nature is never still. Constant change and movement. The landscape always in a state of flux. Next month, if I come back, it will look different again.

As we head further up the hillside steepens. We catch glimpses of the rocks above, marking the edge of the Kinder plateau through the mist. Erie shapes of rocks, gullies and edges poking out from the gloom. I welcome these sights. They lure me and keep me heading upwards. looking forward to being in the mist and exploring the rock shapes. I can feel the energy of this place. The gentle buzz and hum of the land. The energy of the stream mixing with the rocks and the plants. This area is old and has not had the usual disruption of humans. How much has it changed over the years it has been like this. Maybe the stream has cut itself a bit deeper into the hillside, a slow process of erosion. Weathered by many cycles of seasonal change. The water finding the weakness in the rock, assisted by gravity, gently gnawing away the ground.

A movement on a rock further upstream catches my eye. A dipper is at work finding their evening meal. Hopping and darting around in the pools and vegetation. I call Pip in and keep her close as we move upwards. I wondered how close we will be able to get before our presence in noticed, or it decides we are close enough and sets off. We move carefully up, taking our time and being careful. Light of foot and care with our steps. Keep moving controlled and with minimal fuss. Good practice for efficient movement. A goal to become lighter, more economical, more at one with the landscape. To blend in and become part of the landscape, not something that barges our way through with no care to what is about us. The dipper disappears into the next set of pools. We hurry up to the rock and look about.

The views are magnificent. The dipper has moved up the stream. I catch one more glimpse then it disappears into the surroundings. It is a brave bird to make its home this far up the hillside. For in a few short months time these barmy conditions will be replaced with a harsher environment and I imagine food will become scarce. The view back down Crowden brook is opening up as we get higher and it taking over from the view down the valley. The colours of the land are standing out against the gloom of the sky and low mist. Enhancing the brightness of late summer. Everything in contrast. The greens and purples are brighter, the browns more subdued, the water brown and silver as it slips its way down the hillside. The setting sun casting it’s evening glow through the mist. Although I can’t see the sun, I feel the light change as it sinks lower in the sky. I stand on the rock in the above picture and take all this in. Breath deep and long. Letting the landscape envelope me and rejoice in this opportunity to be here.

How lucky I am that at this late stage of the day I can venture out into this magnificent place and have it all to myself. Most people heading home, there day is done, where I have added in another piece of magic. Having time to stop and be still. To just be in the present. Even Pip senses this calm and comes to sit with me, for a few moments at least. She is probably just wondering why I have stopped again, and come to give me a nudge to get moving. Which we do. The upper stream looks interesting. The ground steepens and rock bands across the stream’s course will provide some good little scrambles.

Little waterfalls bar our way. Steps and scrambles require more use of my hands and care with foot placements. Shapes appear in the rocks, creatures of long ago, now exposed again show themselves. Some real and some in my imagination.

I spot tiny spots of colour at one point. Little bugs scrabbling around. Wow, what a place to live. How are they living up here? I step carefully past as there are many on the edge of this pool and make my up to the main rock band. Little specks of bright metallic green, glinting in the poor light. I can’t recall seeing these before and wonder at their adventure. I only see them in this one place.

I have seen this for a while and looking forward to some scrambling. The pool beneath is deep and wide. I would imagine this looks very different in the winter with the full winter run off coming crashing down the stream gully and rushing over this band of rock.

We scramble up the left side, Pip make easy work of it. It is not hard but good to be finding some scrambles. We enter the mist just above this rock band. The valley narrows as we approach the summit. Heather and bilberry giving way to moorland grasses as we get higher. The stream is now our path and flat areas of weather rock for our feet. Again I think how different this must be in winter with Kinder Scout disgorging it’s rainy contents down these natural outflows.

I reach the plateau in the mist. The path is obvious and a joy to walk along. The climb behind me, we can move along the edge quickly with a joyful step towards Grindslow Knoll where we descend down the steep path that takes us back to Upper Booth campsite and fish and chips.

We do loiter among the rock sculptures. Bore from many years of being exposed to the weather elements. The shapes arriving from the wind direction and hardness of the rock. A fissure develops into a crevice, then a crack and eventually may divide the rock. The gentle wind and rain working their magic over the years to reduce the hardest substances to sand on the ground. The power of nature is evident everywhere.

A grabbed opportunity that turned into a magical outing. It was magical. The route, the land, the variety in so many things somewhere so simple. A path next to a stream going up a hillside. So much life, so much energy, so many things to see. Again, I am surprised by how much there is. So pleased I went. So pleased I am learning to slow down and learning to see what is before me, before our eyes. If we can afford the time to look.