Collected Musings of a Hill Wanderer

Surely, this winter must go down in memory as one with an early blast of cold weather that brought with it a hell of lot of snow in places. While Macclesfield and Wilmslow came off more lightly than other places, we still have to watch our step while walking about; those pesky areas of black ice can give you a toss before you know it. Nevertheless, the B5470 Macclesfield-Whaley Bridge, A537 Macclesfield -Buxton and A54 Congleton-Buxton roads were shut until last weekend so good dumps of snow weren't at all far away.

While on the subject of places that got more snow, Sheffield comes with its having a covering of several feet of snow in places. In fact, some footways are so trampled that a coffee table smoothness is a threat to life and limb. If I lived over there, I could see my Kahtoola Microspikes being in use every day. Maybe those work colleagues who have been struggling to get from there to our place of work every day might do with something from AutoSock as noted elsewhere in the blogosphere.

Even with all the horror stories, alluring thoughts of seeing hills in full winter garb still tempt me. However, any thoughts of seeing Scottish hills have to be tempered by the recent travel chaos up there. Hopefully, it'll work out OK for everyone caught up in it. Still, Caledonian Sleeper and other train services seem to be heavily hit by the conditions. That mix of fresh snow falling on icy roads really has caused chaos. It's all very well daydreaming of white wildernesses but they have another side.

Maybe that thaw over the weekend will ease things enough to help all who have been marooned by what has been with us for a few weeks now. It even might allow a chance to make good those daydreams with whatever whiteness remains wherever I may go. After all, I quite fancy an outing given that it has been a few weeks since the last one.

I suppose that it might be easier if I lived in Greater Manchester but early Sunday morning getaways from Macclesfield are an impossibility if you are dependent on public transport. Buses don’t move until around 09:00 and train companies must regard Maxonians as right layabouts given that nothing runs north until at least 10:30 (saying that, earlier starts are possible, again at ca. 09:00, if you are heading south). The situation may not be the best but I often contend with it in place of settling into a rant.

That reality means that I need to keep ambitions in check so as to get something from a Sunday’s wanderings; staying near to home is best. Saying that, the longer hours of daylight mean that you can gain quite a lot even with a later start and my start on the Spring Bank Holiday weekend’s Sunday was tardy. Still, my mind did turn to the idea of popping over to Baslow for a spot of northward hiking to one of the stations on the Hope Valley railway line. In the event, a late bus ensured that connections were to be missed so I popped down to Leek instead. The idea of a long stroll to Buxton became a plaything for my mind before I saw sense and decided to walk home instead, an equally long hike but any concerns about missing trains or buses home can be set to one side when your own exertions are taking you back to your own doorstep again.

The route was to be a variation on a theme taken for a yomp from Leek home on a December day a few years ago, my first proper outing in Staffordshire as it happens. That time, I got benighted on the last stretches but presence of mind allowed a headtorch to light the way and I also helped my cause by sticking to road walking rather than "fooling" around in fields in the dark. This time around, there was much less of the tarmac bashing and I was well home before light failed.

As ever with starting from a town centre, some street navigation was in order before softer surfaces were reached on Leek’s outer reaches. In places, this can require concentration by my vague recollections were enough to see me as far as Haregate where I found a public footpath. Crossing pasture and meadow, the strength of the sun was by now unmistakable. Benches with health messages were placed at irregular intervals along the way. It’s an interesting idea but I was left wondering if they were preaching about the benefits of regular walking to the converted rather than the sedentary types who could do with seeing them. Saying that, I suppose that a spot of encouragement never goes amiss.

The growing season already had been busily obscuring man-made objects like road signs but public footpaths are far from immune too and it only takes a meadow to obscure the line of a public right of way. Also, my upbringing on a dairy farm makes me feel uncomfortable trampling grassland with there being a need for it and I stuck with the obvious line of trespass. That led me among more of humanity than is usually my habit as I followed a track that hugged the shoreline of Tittesworth Reservoir closer than others that I have followed in the area. Still, that didn’t take too long and the easier terrain was no harm either though the indentations probably added to the distance being covered.

Next passing point for me was Meerbrook and tarmac was the surface over which I went from the shores of the reservoir to a public footpath making up part of the Staffordshire Moorlands Walks. The crowds were behind me at this point as I carefully picked my way to Greenlane beneath and beside the Roaches. From there, it was on past Roach Side Farm, again with some attention to route finding so as not to disturb their Sunday afternoon before I found metalled road again near Roche Grange where I found a mock fortune teller placed out on the side of the road and in the sun. Though there were other (real) folk enjoying the weather like I was, the road was untravelled by traffic until I found a right of way leading to Clough Farm. More of these were stitched together to take me to Danebridge and the late afternoon grew more pleasant. Before I crossed over the River Dane, I found what can only be described as an installation with more scarecrow-esque characters at a fake bus stop and awaiting an infrequent "buz" with humorous signs added to suit. It was all in jest, even if it was a striking reminder of my plans having been changed for me, and has set me to wondering if there was some sort of scarecrow thing going on in this part of Staffordshire of which I wasn’t aware.

After Danebridge, I was back in Cheshire and it was now into evening time. A more direct off-road option was in mind than the one that I followed but it’s never the slips that make for good navigation but the ability to correct them and that definitely the order of things. Even so, I passed through a short piece of shady woodland and reached Hammerton Farm as planned. From there, it was onto the A54 and the Wild Boar pub, which incidentally had opened up the area at its rear for camping. I left the Congleton-Buxton road for more soft surface travel near Longgutter before tarmac bashing took over again. Again, I was following a quiet lane and with good evening views of Shutlingsloe, Sutton Common and Croker Hill. That lane eventually gave me a sidewalk at Higher Sutton (they turn up in the most unexpected places in Cheshire) and my lane took me ever onward towards Sutton, Macclesfield and home. It may have cooled down noticeably by this time but there were still groups of hostelry patrons out and about, a grand evening (or night as one farming chap said to me and I thought that you only said that when it was dark; it was equally ironic given that I arrived home in daylight this time around) for it.

Travel Details:

Service 108 from Macclesfield to Leek.

I don’t know which JH Darren Christie had in mind when he included a link to here among his illustrious list of blogging TGO Challengers. What I do know is that I’d be extremely surprised if it was me and I hope that I haven’t disappointed you with that admission. For one thing, I don’t believe that I’ve ever mentioned the Challenge on here before so I suspect that the link came (many thanks, anyway) amid the last minute rush before departure. Getting ready for something like this cannot be the simplest of tasks and I wish all of them the very best in their endeavours. Doubtless, there will some tales appearing online in time and I only hope that they are happy ones.

However, the episode does prompt a question for me about the Challenge and this is its thirtieth year, after all: what about it? There is one thing in its favour, and that should be apparent from various blog postings that you find here, is that the parts of Scotland through which an itinerary would take me are among my favourite parts of the world. Nevertheless, the idea of a two week crossing adds other points to ponder. Back to back multi-day treks are something that I really haven’t been doing much since I finished off the West Highland Way and made a more concerted start on the Rob Roy Way. Then, there’s the matter of lessening dependence on serviced accommodation (well, hostelling is gaining some favour with me over hotels and guesthouses) in favour of a more independent alternative; some may use the former option for the whole Challenge but it seems to be the exception rather the rule. After that, there’s the subject of personal fitness and I very much realise that work is needed there too.

So, my answer to the question of doing the challenge is not just yet. What I am not saying is that it is not for me because many of the things that I enjoy these days were activities that I was happy to leave for other folk at one point. Apart from the whole hill wandering habit, this is true to an extent also of how I earn my living. When you ease yourself into something at your own pace, things start to happen and heaven only knows how far you’ll get.

In the meantime, the longer days of summer are now at hand. Of course, that is no guarantee of fine weather in these parts and I don’t like it too hot anyway. Even with those caveats, my mind is turning to multi-day excursions again. Having a selection of Graham Uney’s Backpacker’s Britain Cicerone Guides, I shouldn’t be short of a few ideas and the prospect of managing walks for which public transport logistics might be tricky has a certain footloose appeal. Much of Chris Townsend’s The Backpacker’s Handbook has been read and there is nothing at all to stop re-readings. Gear has been building over time up but more acquisitions remain in order. What I really need to do is decide when I am sufficiently equipped for stepping just across that threshold from walker to backpacker while not going in too deep too soon; that should keep the wish list under control. Suspicions are building that there could be some tinkering and familiarisation before I embark on anything more adventurous. A summer of exploring the paraphernalia of independent backpacking might be no bad thing, even without their being used in anger on an escapade.

Like many outdoorsy bloggers, I share my meagre adventures with the world. Of course, they are nothing like Irishman Pat Falvey‘s recently successful Beyond Endurance expedition to the South Pole. The Antarctic attracted its fair share of Irish with names like Bransfield, Shackleton, Crean, Keohane, Forde and McCarthy gracing the history of the continent’s exploration in an era where the exploits were a world away from our interconnected present where websites can convey regular news of progress in a timely manner. In contrast to the blogs of members of Falvey’s team like Shaun Menzies and Jonathan Bradshaw, the diaries of those explorers from the past were much slower in becoming publicly available. Having read Sir Ranulph Fiennes’ Captain Scott, I detect resonances of similar hardships down through the ages even in the latest stories.

The heroics of Scott, Shackleton et al. were all the more profound given that they were venturing into the unknown; it wasn’t as if they could fly back from the South Pole after reaching it, like present day explorers can do; they not only had to reach the pole but they had to return too and that sadly was Scott’s undoing. Fiennes’ descriptions of the hardships and disasters suffered on Scott’s expeditions were so vivid that I needed some gentler reading to give me a break from the grim happenings being described. Damien Enright’s A Place Near Heaven returned my imagination to a more temperate climate with is vividly pleasant observations of the activities of nature throughout the seasons in West Cork. Bemused recollections of crows breaking open shellfish by dropping them onto boreens, and puncturing car tyres with the resultant mess, certainly provided light relief. Maybe, I am not cut out for polar exploration.

Another world far away from mine is that of high altitude mountaineering, the type of thing for which the likes of the late Sir Edmund Hilary gained their fame. Names like Alan Hinkes and Chris Bonnington also come to mind. Climbing the world’s highest mountains is another activity that more than takes the human body well outside of its zone of comfort. Reading of Irish mountaineer Gavin Bate’s pulmonary oedema on Everest in a recent of Walking World Ireland certainly made me shudder (he managed to make his way back down from the death zone and is still very much with us). Stories like that do make one wonder why some people do this and that sort of wonderment brings my thoughts to Robert MacFarlane’s Mountains of the Mind. Like Fiennes’ book, that too ends with a hero encountering his goal and never returning alive; in Mallory’s case, we may never know if he achieved his.

You might be wondering what has brought this lot on. Ironically, it isn’t necessarily my wonderment at the exploits of those venturing into extreme places, though that of course plays its part. In the main, the real triggers come from a world more like that described by Damien Enright rather than that frequented by Pat Falvey and his kind. It seems that we Irish, rather than wallowing in the habitual and banal like poet Patrick Kavanagh, would rather relate the exceptional. There is a place for that but I reckon that the world is the poorer for Irish hillwalkers not relating their more accessible adventures in the Irish countryside. I, for one, would have a strong interest in them and, if I were to encounter a good blog musing over walking in Ireland as its mainstay, I’d be more than happy to give it a mention. In the meantime, I really should try to get in a proper hillwalking day over there this year. It shouldn’t demand the heroics of Scott and others…

I seem to be spreading my wings a bit further afield with a link from Tom Mangan’s intriguingly-named Two-Heel Drive. There is a lot of very good material about the U.S. backpacking scene (including a salutary tale on the dangers of infection from a blister) here and I must return and read a little more, Thanks for the link, Tom.