October 16, 1987: Castleton to Hathersage

On the morning of Friday, October 16, we got up at 7:15 in order to be ready for breakfast by 7:45. I had not enjoyed a good night; my legs had been aching and the nearby clock tower had relentlessly reminded me of the waning hours every fifteen minutes. I couldn’t face the prospect of shaving, but I did get a brush on my teeth before leading the troops back down to our anteroom for breakfast.

While we were munching our cornflakes and chomping into our fried breakfasts there was a phone call from the father of the Frosts. He was interested in our safety – after a night of torrential rain and hurricane winds had devastated the much of south of England. Naturally we had escaped all this, but I was concerned enough to ask the warden for the number of the local weather forecast. Sheffield weather promised a wet and windy start to the day (I could see this out the window already) but also later improvements to include a dry and sunny afternoon. The wardenette agreed that there was no special danger in attempting to use the high level passage between Mam Tor and Lose Hill, “If it gets too windy, you can always use a lower route.” I spread this word among our walkers and other interested hostellers and returned to the dorm to pack.

Tosh collected the lunches and the drinks (but forgot to retrieve my YHA card, it turned out) and we were outside the hostel, our chores completed, by 9:20. Everyone had full raingear on, though in some cases I didn’t see much chance for the survival of some of the flimsiest of the ponchos. With the added problem of handling the map case in wet weather, I passed on the chore of minding the stick to Myassa, who did a good job with it for the next two days. She had warned me that she was not like her sister; every time I invited her to jump into a cow pie in memory of Lamya’s antics, she demurred. Far more serious, Myassa was into good works (she had recently jumped out of an airplane to raise money for Mencap) and seemed almost to be from an earlier era. While most of ASL’s students seemed primed for a career in yuppiedom Myassa appeared to have sprung fully-armed from the pages of the Whole Earth Catalogue.

We walked down to the main road and turned left, getting just as far as the petrol station against a terrific headwind that was whipping the rain into us. Jenny wanted to make an adjustment to her boot here and while she was doing this I gave very serious consideration to packing it in and heading for Hathersage along some more welcoming path. The wind was only gusting however and you could make occasional progress without too much difficulty so I persevered, leading our windswept column up the Winants Pass road, where we had to backtrack to use the access road to Treak Cliff Cave. This was a stretch of the route where I was very happy to have the maps of Mark Richards.

I cut a few corners off Haslam’s route and got us to the steps leading up to the cave itself. A British flag was snapping against its flagpole as we neared the plastic roof of the cave forecourt (snack bar and souvenir shop). Here the frontrunners had already ordered hot drinks before the tail could get up the steps. After this impromptu early pit stop we climbed up a few more steps and followed the track that contoured the hillside. This headed uphill to a stile that would give access to the Blue John cave. The gale, however, was growing fiercer. I found that I had the greatest difficulty even staying on the trail; the wind would get hold of my poncho and pull me off with every other step. At last I decided that it would not be safe up top today and at the stile I ordered a retreat to Treak Cliff cavern. Myassa and Kerry indicated that there were willing to have a go in spite of these conditions, but the rest of the group seemed relieved.

Back under cover we had another rest and an even longer refueling stop. Tosh had discovered that we could soon tour the mine itself. In the interval we had tea, chocolate, and hot soup. Everyone took packs off. I wandered into the gift shop where there were maps for sale. I already owned them all but this would be easier than wrestling them out of my pack and I needed an initial idea of how to get started for Hathersage. I selected the magenta-colored Sheffield and Huddersfield OS map and had a look. “This area is covered in the Dark Peak map,” the officious snarlyboodle in charge informed me.” “Thank you,” I said, continuing to look at the magenta map instead, and knowing perfectly well that although Castleton may be on the yellow-colored Dark Peak map, Hathersage is definitely not. Unfortunately Tosh had been trying to get someone to advise us on alternate routes and this sour old chap turned out to be the nominee. “I think we know which map to use, sir” he sneered when he began his summary. Having informed him that we had turned back because of the winds I got a gratis lecture, “Of course you had to turn back; surely you know that we are 700 feet above sea level here!” He seemed genuinely disappointed that I hadn’t put my group in a situation requiring the intervention of Mountain Rescue. He confirmed the existence of the low-level route I was planning to use anyway and I escaped him in order to join the tour of the cavern.

A young chap with the requisite arsenal of quips and one-liners led us up and down the dripping tunnels of the mine and told us something of the history of the blue-john stone. The kids seemed to enjoy the talk, which lasted about thirty minutes, and I was impressed with the way they adapted themselves so readily to new situations. Unusual lighting techniques and a few seconds of total darkness (“Twelve hours in this and you’ll go mad, they say”) were a part of this tour. A number of the small caves had wonderful displays of attractively lit stalagmites and stalactites. We were invited to see witches, fairies, vegetables, and animals in the twisting shapes. When the tour was over we were sent down a passage to unlock our own door; the girls couldn’t get it unlocked and the guide had to come do it for them. I couldn’t tell whether this moment was a part of the show (“locked in an abandoned mineshaft!”) or not.

By eleven we were back outside and reunited with our packs. It was still raining, though there were some hopeful bright patches to the east, our direction. I took out my Dark Peak map and folded it carefully inside my map case. I would have to follow it rather than any guidebook for the next few miles. We descended the steps and took to the road again, walking quickly back into Castleton and along its main drag past the post office. I was looking for a turn off and sure enough a sign indicating a footpath to Hope put us onto a lane and introduced us to a very pleasant cross-country ramble along a river (Peakshole Water), over fences, and through fields.

Everyone seemed to be in a good mood, in spite of the light rain. Mike Messner, Doug and Greg were giving their own versions of ancient comedy records, Monty Python and Black Adder. I was having good success finding the landmarks on my OS map, including a reservoir and a railway line. In one of the many fields crossed on this route there were several friendly horses, glistening with moisture in the rain. The students petted them and give them apples. We passed an oxbow bend in the river and headed downhill. In fact there were plenty of stiles but not much evidence of any path.

At last we reached a motor road south of Hope village and headed along it in search of a noontime pub. Tosh turned her nose up, appropriately, at a hotel with a “no rucksacks” sign, but she had better luck at the Old Hall pub across the street. It was getting brighter all the time and I told her that we would have to consider the possibility of resuming the original high-level route in the afternoon. I was sure we would have time to do this and I always preferred arriving late with tired students than arriving early with bored ones.

We had been admitted under a “no alcohol” restriction from the landlord, something that suited Tosh and myself even more than the publican. We reminded our charges not to eat their own food in the pub and everyone got something to drink and ordered some kind of sandwich. I had a cheeseburger and chips. We brought some chairs onto the cement floor where we were seated and had a good, relaxing time. It seemed to take forever for the food to arrive.

I had plenty of time to consult my guidebooks and arrange my maps for an assault on Win Hill, our original goal for this afternoon’s walk. In Hope we were only a half-mile off the White Peak Way; when we resumed the walk, about 1:45, there were six and a half miles still to go. We would be walking, I later figured, a total of eleven miles instead of the originally scheduled twelve and a half, but it was sunny outside now and vistas were improving all the time. Everyone seemed quite prepared to resume our original line of march and so we were off.

We walked north out of Hope along the motor road to Edale. I used a back road to cross under the railway line that had carried Jay and me to the start of the Pennine Way in 1982. Here we rejoined the White Peak Way and turned south until we were at the bottom of the access road to Twitchell Farm, not a ruin as Haslam described it, but a going concern with smoke rising from its chimney above us. The walk was quite steep up to the farm and I had to have most of the kids wait for us old folks. I spied the line of ascent, up a grassy field to a stile in the top of a very steep field and sent everyone ahead while I cut switchbacks as I pulled myself up. Protest cries of “Mr. Linick!” rained down upon me. Kerry, Myassa, and a limping Jenny Frost also made slow progress up this hill, but at last we were all assembled at the stile and ready for another spurt across a similarly inclined but shorter field.

Some of the lads, showing off, actually sprinted up the final stretches of this ascent. Here we waited some time for the girls behind and then followed a more gradually inclined rocky path up through the moor and over to the top of the ridge. The students stopped once at a large cairn, perhaps hoping that this was it, but an even larger outcrop on a little pinnacle jutted up at the east end of the ridge – and we still had some distance to go. Some of the boys attempted a direct assault on the rocks of this pinnacle, even Michael Buntag – who is afraid of heights. The rest of us stuck to the trail, which rounded a rocky and very windy corner and presented us with the longed-for sight of Win Hill’s triangulation pillar.

I was very pleased that the weather had permitted some experience with real peak climbing and I think everyone felt exhilarated. To the north we could see Ladybower Reservoir and to the south and east a wonderful panorama of the Derwent Valley and its gritstone edges. Clouds sped across the sky but without menace. Everything was blue and gold. There was a party of senior walkers, men, occupying the summit. We took turns photographing them and they us. One of these chaps called this “a shining example of Anglo-American cooperation.” Finally there was a photo that showed all fourteen members of our party at once. Greg was having some difficulty with his camera and thought it might be a battery problem so I fished my walkman out of its pack and we borrowed one of its batteries. After all of this, with the cold wind scratching away at us, it turned out that he was just out of film.

We began our descent, dropping off the moorland quickly and crossing a stile to enter a woodland. I kept sending the kids ahead to an agreed-on rendezvous, always within sight, and they were very good about waiting. “Carry on through this sparse woodland until you come to a fence,” I advised them, quoting from Haslam. They were all set to cross this fence and continue their descent through the woods but I led them out onto the open hillside along a descending track that afforded wonderful views of the valley below us. Just at a time when I began to think we were heading too far to the west I decided to summon Mike Messner  – “Binoculars Wallah!” I shouted. Mike, well trained, rushed forward with my Spartan Stadium specials and we had a look around. It was just as well that I had stopped because almost by accident I observed below us the wooden gate that we were supposed to go through.

This gate put us on a version of a track but it had been chewed into muddy paste by the local cows and it was very tough going. The farmer, who was nearby, looked at us as though he were seeing a caravan of the mad. Every few minutes there would be a forsaken cry as another of us hit the mud in a gluey swan dive. I continued to keep up a pretty fast pace and after about fifteen minutes of this madness we reached more solid ground at the village of Bamford. Tosh and some of the girls were well behind us and I waited quite a while at certain corners in Bamford for the women – while a fat lady Labrador waddled about among us.

We were very dependent on Haslam for a route along hedgerows (some with brambles and blackberries) up to and around the headquarters of the Derwent Valley Water Board. We made it through two more fields and I decided to pause for a long rest, with each student sprawled out along a section of field boundary in the afternoon sun. It was quite lovely, not too cold, and the wind had dropped to nothing. Everyone dipped into their snacks, with much left over from the lunches packed by Castleton Youth Hostel. I ate a sausage roll packed by Ravenstor Youth Hostel. Our peace was at last shattered by the arrival of a curious dairy herd (I did the Jaws music as they approached). They didn’t get that close but it was time to shove off anyway.

We left the field, crossed under the railway line, went through the car park of the garden centre, crossed the busy main highway and a little bridge over the Derwent and turned downriver for a delightful riverside stroll of several miles. Often there was no path but it was hard to go wrong as long as I kept the river on the left. Poor Jenny Frost was limping rather badly now and every now and then her brother exchanged packs with her – his being the lighter. She carried a tree limb for a cane, disdaining the real walking stick still kept by Myassa. It was during this stretch that there were frequent requests for estimated mileage figures, somewhat difficult for me to provide in the absence of distinguishing landmarks. It seemed to take forever to complete the stretch to Nether Hall, just across the river, and the shadows were getting longer indeed as we at last reached the motor road at the Leadmill Bridge.

When everyone had reassembled we followed this road north, under the railway, and into the village of Hathersage. Haslam has a large map of the village in his book so it was easy for me to find the right turn-offs that brought us at 5:50 to the Hathersage Youth Hostel. Here we found a boot and drying room, quite well-heated, in the basement. I checked us in and got our chores and a list of dinner choices to sort out. Two of the girls had to share accommodation with some later arrivals; Kerry and Myassa agreed to do this. The lads were sent out to the annex behind the hostel where we took all eight beds in the central room of a line of three. There were toilets, washbasins, and a shower downstairs and I had time to get a shower before the 7:00 dinner bell.

At dinner I did my pea trick. Everyone seemed to be in a good mood and we never had any difficulty in getting kids to pitch in with their chores. Dina had succeeded in getting mud over all of her designer sweaters. Doug had foolishly removed the tape from his blister and I had to supply him with all the equipment to start over again. In spite of this painful spot on his heel he never complained on the trail – though he was still bothered by the blister two weeks later.

We all agreed to be back in the hostel by 10:30 and I told the kids that Tosh and I would buy everyone a soft drink if they came by the bar of the rather posh hotel, also the George, next door. Some of them then went searching in the moonlit churchyard for the grave of Robin Hood’s Little John. Others visited other pubs and some of the boys, forbidden their beer, indulged instead in cigars. When I ran into them I was able to relate some awful news – I had seen an army of munchkins (ten-year olds from Kettering) invading the other rooms of our dorm. As for more significant bad tidings, I had spoken to Dorothy – who had all the details of the hurricane that had kept everyone up and the lights out last night in London.

The bar at the George was filling up rapidly with Yuppies from Sheffield. There presence explains the complaint of a geography teacher who was sitting with his wife at the table next to us. He said he had been looking for a house in Hathersage but that prices were £20,000 more here than for the same property in Sheffield. Tosh and I had a good time talking with him and he seemed impressed with all we had seen and done on outings with kids in England.

Our only companion was Michael Buntag, laboriously completing a sketching assignment with pencil and eraser. I told him he had to order something in a pub and finally I got him to take a lemonade. He sat nervously twitching one leg and picking at a boil on his lip until it started to bleed. Dina came in and put a hand on his leg to calm it.

She was followed first by the girls, who stayed only briefly, and then by the boys (no romances on this trip) each of whom stayed long enough for a drink. By this time I had been through three pineapple juices and Tosh had gotten through an equal number of St. Clements. The George itself and the village of Hathersage generally have Jane Eyre associations and there were pictures of Charlotte Bronte all over the walls of this quite crowded hostelry.

Everyone went back to the hostel and Tosh and I took a walk through the cold night air of the village before returning ourselves. No one seemed about so I headed back to our dorm where, at 10:30, I discovered all the guys already in bed! This says a lot about the virtues of a tiring day for teenagers. Unfortunately the ten-year olds, who seemed to be leaderless at this moment, were running around our room. One approached me to demand, “Please tell your lot to be quiet so we can go to sleep, especially him,” pointing at Doug Gibb in the bunk above me. Gradually they calmed themselves down by telling ghost stories. Kerry and Myassa had inherited the little girls of this group but they had enjoyed this assignment. We turned out the light and two little boys in the far room continued to chatter in the darkness for some time while I listened to my walkman, the mechanical whisper of Doug’s machine chirring above me, as I waited for the effects of the aspirin and the sleeping tablet to take their course.

To continue with the next stage of our walk you need:

Day 8: Hathersage to Bakewell