July 21, 1982: Edale to Crowden-in-Longdendale
Jay strides off in the Grindsbrook valley
Three years after my completing the northernmost section of the Pennine Way, Jay Cardinal and I were ready to undertake our second trans-Pennine foot patrol and pub crawl by completing the southernmost section of the route, Edale to Gargrave. Jay had arrived in London, where the Linicks had been permanent residents for a little over a year, on Saturday morning, July 17th. Here he had spent a few days getting over jet lag and painting our bathroom. In the second week of what seemed to be a protracted train strike I had purchased two bus tickets to Sheffield; we had already secured the necessary reservations at inns, b&b’s and youth hostels for five days of walking.
Gargrave is some 70 miles from Edale, but reaching it would bring to an end an adventure I had begun eight years earlier. This would be my sixth expedition and – given its length and the challenges of the terrain – my most ambitious undertaking. Naturally I approached the task with considerable anxiety, especially as I had been having some pain, in the squatting position, below the right knee. This was not a matter I discussed with Jay, who would have to be content, in his ignorance, with the positive sign that at least this time he would walking with a partner who was not actually limping from the outset. “Lo-the-poor Indian,” for his part, had, by the afternoon of our departure day, complained of sore calves, tender gums, and chafed feet – thus taking a three-one lead in the hypochondria sweepstakes.
We set out with packs each weighing approximately twenty pounds. I wore my brown Borsolino hat, my grey University of Michigan sweatshirt, and my tan L.L. Bean chinos. And I was carrying a broom handle in lieu of a walking staff. We marched in the early morning sun to the Maida Vale tube stop and emerged at Victoria, where Jay bought a fruit and nut bar. Trains were again running by this date, but we made use of our bus tickets anyway – arriving to find an almost deserted Victoria Coach Station. There were plenty of seats aboard the Sheffield coach, which left promptly at 9:00. There was one comfort stop on the M1 near Leicester – breaking a rather uninteresting journey for thirty minutes or so. I had a doughnut and bought a puzzle magazine; Jay ate a piece of pie. The bus driver seemed to have difficulty finding the right exit for Sheffield and left the motorway three times as he hunted for the right turnoff. Nevertheless we arrived at 1:40 and made further transportation inquiries at both the bus and train stations – with the good news that we would be able to take a 2:40 train directly to the start of the route and the bad news that the elaborately labeled EDALE hitchhiking sign I had lettered would no longer be required.
We celebrated our luck by downing a pint and a half at the Penny Black pub, where we each ate a ham and tomato sandwich. The beer befogged our sense of time and we found we had only minutes left for some errands. Jay’s stop was at a bakery for a custard tart, mine a dash through Presto for tomorrow’s lunch provisions – and we also paid a visit to the city center in search of a shoelace from which Jay could dangle his compass. By this time we had to quick march back to the train station, actually running a bit at the end, in order to climb aboard our train with only two minutes to spare. The pay train guard could not add two times £1.38 in his head.
The train journey, which included a long tunnel ride, took place in ever improving scenery. A horde of campers jumped aboard to ride from one local station to the next. We detrained at the Edale halt at 3:30 and strolled through the village, finally inquiring at the post office for the whereabouts of Mrs. Beney. The town was full of day-tripping young people from Manchester – they looked quite displaced among the earnest hikers in boots and shorts.
The Old Parsonage was a restored 1634 structure that boasted a swimming pool and a beautiful garden in which we soon discovered Mrs. Beney herself – doing battle with the black fly. We were shown to a very nice room and paused only to leave some of our gear behind before undertaking a practice stroll up the alternative start of the PW, climbing to a spot above Upper Booth. It was mostly gray but not too gloomy or cold and the air was wonderful. How good it felt to have a foot on Pennine turf again – and I suffered only one ominous calf twinge descending from a stile.
We returned to the Beneys at about 5:00 and visited with Mr. Beney, who worked for an outdoor adventure outfit. He described the restoration of the house while we drank tea and nibbled on biscuits. Meanwhile, as Siegfried, the parakeet, rang his bell and nibbled on Jay’s fingers, swallows circled above. At 6:30 we went back to the Nag’s Head for dinner and another pint. The latter was finished at an outdoor table while we worked on postcards and our journals to the accompaniment of juvenile yobbos chattering nastiness to one another while squirting cola from straws. Jay drew a picture on a bar napkin of a lovely bird – a chaffinch – who perched above us on a phone wire.
It began to get chilly as the sun, after a late afternoon appearance, settled behind Kinder Scout. I phoned Dorothy and we returned to the Old Parsonage at 8:00. I had to offload some beer at midnight and didn’t sleep much beyond 6:00. Jay continued to add to his catalogue of narcoleptic utterances – twice breaking the sleepytime silence to tell us, “10 times 100 is 600,” and – in a Texas drawl, “This table is taken, Ma’am.”
When I finally got up I used the first of the brushless shaving lather we had brought with us, peering anxiously at the low clouds hanging above the Hope Valley. During breakfast, where two other residents quizzed us on our plans (and I do so like to be interrogated over my cornflakes), the sun actually made an appearance, and when we departed at 9:00 it was fairly bright. The start of the way began literally at the end of the Beney property – a finger post pointing down to a footbridge over a stream. It was with great excitement that we threaded our way down the shady and slippery lane to the bridge, crossed to the other side, and turned north.
We marched up the lovely Grindsbrook Valley and Jay took an early lead in an object-spotting game we had devised the night before – one in which a point was awarded for the first sighting of such objects as an orange soda can, a Mars bar wrapper, or a radio – plus points for encountering categories of walker: geriatric, non-white, toddler, and even for such events as the first suckling sheep, the first pissing cow, and the first munching rambler. Jay took great delight in beating me to the punch in this contest, which he seemed to take very seriously by overruling all my quibbles – “That’s a purple wildflower, not a blue one” – and by waiting for me to announce a sighting before telling me he had already seen it too. The result was that the Chippewas enjoyed a thumping 24-9 victory.
Much of the early point-scoring came while we were rounding Grindsbrook and beginning the extremely steep scramble up the flank of Kinder Scout. I used my walking stick to good effect on this stretch and only heard from me knee once or twice. The sun disappeared on the top – though visibility remained good. This was not much help in route finding because we could not discover an appropriate path to Kinder Gates and this left us quite non-plussed. Soon there came up behind us a school sports jock and a somewhat reluctant companion who were “doing the Pennine Way.” The jock assured us that we had the right compass bearing for Kinder Downfall and that any sandy bottom would do anyway – so we followed him to the western edge of the summit, using such channels to reach what appeared to be the Downfall. As we continued along the edge, however, we discovered at last the watery spray of the real Downfall, far more spectacular and large – but Mr. Outdoorsman refused to concede the point when we challenged him on it later.
I stand on a rock near the Kinder Downfall
The sun reappeared now and we had dry, warm weather the rest of the day. It was obvious that there had been no major rainfall recently and we were lucky because many famous wet spots were pretty dry today. About the first landmark that looked the way I had imagined it was Mill Hill, which we saw below us on our descent from Kinder Scout. Jay paused at the top here to add a piece of tape to his foot. We then proceeded in a north-easterly direction toward the Snake Road – which seemed much closer than in fact it proved. The final section, Featherbed Moss, had a few juicy sections.
We were getting pretty peckish, but it was not until we reached the beginnings of the Devils Dyke that we found a spot somewhat sheltered from the wind and here we sat down to have lunch. I made some filled baps, but to me they proved rather dry and my hunger was soon satisfied. I could see that we would have a liquid problem on such a warm day, but it was very hard to restrain the chugalugging Chippewa.
Along Clough Edge, with the Torside Reservoir in the distance
How different the actual ascent of Bleaklow seemed from the imagined version – which featured mist and muck. All the peat was dry today and the sun was getting hotter. On the top I asked the jock to take our picture. We then followed him down the western side of Bleaklow, leapfrogging over a stream with him and some other quite young walkers. Today the streamside path was surrounded by blooming heather. At its foot, where Wildboar Grain meets Torside Clough, we had a rest and I ducked my head in the stream to cool off. We then followed a rocky path up and around the cliffs of Clough Edge. I got sunburned on this section – the wind being too strong for my hat – which I had to remove. I did not like the descent to Longdendale, which was very steep and hard on the toes. Reaps Farm, at the bottom, stank of chicken shit.
We followed a farm road and then crossed the bridge over the Torside Reservoir. I was suffering from the lack of liquid now – we were down to half a canteen – and Jay, certain we were almost at the end, was doing his best to incite my Treasure of the Sierra Madre envy by taking large gulps. When we found a shady spot on the walk up to the highway he suggested we sit down – on some nettles it turned out – and I ate an apple to regain some moisture. We followed the road to Crowden, then a track to the youth hostel. “It’s a good thing we have a short day tomorrow,” Jay said, “you ran out of steam today.” “Not out of steam,” I retorted, “just out of water!”
It was 5:45 when we arrived at the Youth Hostel – after a sixteen-mile day. I drank the first of several soft drinks from the hostel store as we completed the check-in procedure. We were placed in a long dormitory, Jay on the bunk above me. We each took showers and I was glad to see that my feet were still blisterless. The place was populated by six or seven young walkers and one old coot – even older than Jay’s walking companion. Only four of us had ordered the evening meal – fish patty and chips – which was served at 7:30.
I phoned Dorothy, after a fruitless wait to get into the kiosk outside, from a pay phone in the dining room. Jay had discovered that it was possible to take a cab down the valley to a likely sounding pub and the two youngest walkers, Rich and Keith, had discovered that Jay was intent on doing just that. My companion claimed he couldn’t understand the local accents and made me call the cab company and after fifteen minutes a car pulled up to take the four of us the four miles to Tintwhistle – what a decadent gesture. We had two pints of lager apiece at the Old Oak – the boys disappearing to scarf down some grease at the local chippy – and at 10:00 we called the cabbie again. All the other walkers were in bed by the time we returned. I did not sleep well in my homemade sheet envelope and the youth hostel duvet and, several times, I had to shake the bed above me to get Jay to stop yakking in his sleep.
To continue with the next stage of our walk you need: