Navigation Aspiration

Before we reached the Howden Dam we headed off uphill on the north side of Abbey Brook. Grey clouds had been accumulating and by the time we had escaped the lower woodland, they started unleashing rain. We donned out waterproofs and continued plodding on upwards.

Mo had declared that he was learning to navigate. Calse said that if I dropped dead, then Mo would have to take my car keys from my corpse and then they'd have to find their own way back to the car. I apologised for any inconvenience I might cause them, and I asked Mo how his navigation homework was coming along. 'Oh, I've not started yet', he replied. I offered to show him how to navigate, but rather than take lessons from a proven expert he said that he would prefer to acquire the knowledge from unproven influencers on YouTube videos. I've an idea that navigation is above his capabilities, but I dislike discouraging aspiration. I said I'd let him navigate on the next walk. 'Oh no, it'll be towards the end of September before I'm ready', he quickly informed me. 'I'll look forward to that', I lied. If and when he does attempt some guiding, I'll have to remember to pack some extra provisions and a bivvy bag for myself, and a couple of extra large bin bags for this pair, since goodness knows where we might end up.

High Stones

We had to do a bit of an out-and-back to the summit of High Stones. We didn't linger there since there was a strong wind making vertical standing difficult. At Wet Stones we followed a sketchy path that contours the hillside just below the heather line. I had intended following this path along the edge of Abbey Brook. This path offers great views down into the top end of the Abbey Brook valley. The edge was catching the wind today though and I made an executive decision to take a more direct route across the moors towards the path known as the Dukes Road. Away from the edge, we did lose the wind, but it was sometimes tough walking across trackless heather.

At Cartledge Brook I put one foot onto what I thought was a solid clump of grass. My foot immediately sank and I had that horrible feeling of cold water running over my ankles and into my boot. I quickly put my other leg down hard onto another clump of grass in order to lever my sinking leg out, but this too started to sink. There then followed an ungainly struggle to wade through swamp to find some purchase to lift myself out of the predicament. Eventually I found more stable ground and I managed to drag myself out of the mire. A ghastly hydrogen sulphide smell then pervaded the area. I looked at my trousers and sighed. I'd have to use double the amount of washing machine powder on my duds tonight. I was disappointed to find Mo and Calse giggling nearby. They had found an ideal spot to cross the brook. I was glad that I hadn't insisted in imparting my expert navigational knowledge to Mo, in our earlier discussions. It was an ungenerous thought, but my mood was raw.

Back Tor And Lost Lad

It is hard to keep a good man down though and my mood had lightened somewhat by the time we reached the Dukes Road. Mo and Calse found that by walking 10 metres upwind of me they could almost escape the stench of the hydrogen sulphide emanating from my trousers. Back Tor was busy with people and so we took our lunch on some rocks a little off to the east. It was threatening to rain again, but it managed to hold off. It isn't easy to get to the trig of Back Tor and so our Ethel photo was taken on a  nearby boulder

At Lost Lad we all looked at the toposcope on the stone plinth. Mo randomly called out some names from the metal plaque and I pointed them out in the distance. 'That's not Grinah Stones', he said when I pointed out the very obvious stone cliff on the skyline. 'Yes it is', I replied. 'No it isn't. This plaque says it should be that hill over there'. He was pointing towards Bleaklow Head. I was about to tell him, 'If that is Grinah Stones, then I've been climbing the wrong bloody hill for 50 years', but I decided that this might discourage his aspirations for learning navigation at this sensitive early stage. I looked down at the toposcope and placed my walking stick in the direction of the arrow pointing to Grinah Stones. I then crouched down and looked along the walking stick. It certainly wasn't pointing to Grinah Stones. I told him that this was a good navigational lesson to put under his belt; that is, on rare occasions a map (or toposcope) may not honestly represent reality and that he should always keep that in the back of his mind. Looking at his blank face, I could see that the concept went to the back of his mind and then slid straight out of his ears, like a youngster on an helter skelter slide.

Return To Fairholmes

It is quite a plateau between Lost Lad and the Derwent valley. This makes the view all the more impressive when you finally reach the plateau's edge and look down into the valley. The water was so low in the Upper Derwent reservoir that it had exposed the old supports used for the railway bridge over an inlet of the reservoir. The railway was used during the construction of Howden dam.

Over to our left we heard a screech and saw a Buzzard fly into the trees on the hillside. The path is quite steep down from the plateau to the reservoir. The lower part is usually quite wet making a slip on to your backside a possibility. It was as dry as a bone today though. On reaching the reservoir we started walking along the track back towards Fairholmes. We heard a screech above us, and we saw our Buzzard emerge from the trees. fly across the reservoir and then chase another large bird away. It looked like a busy day for him defending his territory.

Fairholmes was a chaos of cars and motorbikes. It isn't really a place to escape civilisation on sunny, weekend summer days. We had enjoyed our walk. Mo had even learned a very important first lesson in navigation. I did think about testing him on it, but I could see in the way that his tongue was hanging out of the side of his mouth, that his concentration was fully occupied with unlacing his boots. Roll-on September when he guides his first walk, I thought.