There are two locations left that have Tracy and I worried and both of them are at Kinder Scout. Kinder Scout is the highest mountain in the Peak District at 636m, not only is it very high up, but it is vast at the top. In fact, it's so vast that it's actually classed as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). So why are Tracy and I worried about it? Well, firstly there is the fact that it's a 10 mile hike which means it absolutely has to be done at a weekend and secondly it's really not the kind of place you can visit in bad conditions. The plateau is peat and in the rain it becomes a giant bog, it's also incredibly easy to get lost if the conditions change and visibility drops. Luckily the forecast was for dry weather, we decided to go for it and get the first one completed: Pym Chair & Wool Packs.
All of the above sounds a bit doom and gloom, don't get me wrong, the walk up was brutal and neither of us particularly enjoyed it. Luckily we had James Pedlar with us (again) who knew the area quite well, one less thing to worry about! We even packed some lunch and drinks for this one, a proud moment of preparation :) The location was rather amazing, there were hundreds of bolders and rock formations at the top, it was like a fairground of amazing features, we were spoilt for choice. Just before we got to all that though, we had a few minutes to take in the incredible view, you can really see how high we had hiked:
At the summit, the first prominent feature we were greeted with was one of the main viewpoints for this location; Pym Chair. You can see why it's called that, it's a big gritstone rock formation that kind of looks like a chair. You can also see from this image that the weather started to turn rather cloudy... oh dear! It was also at this point in the journey that we met Harsharn, I can only describe him as the most physically fit person I have ever met. All 3 of us were huffing, puffing and sweating on our walk. Harsharn was running! Not only that, but he had completed two laps of Kinder in the time it took for us to get to the top! I haven't ever seen anything like it in my life :O
We took a few shots here and then headed over to the Wool Packs. It's here the fun and exploration can really be had, Tracy fell in love with this particular rock feature because she claimed it looked like some kind of dinosaur head or something?? I still can't see it, maybe it's just my lack of imagination?
It occurred to me that out of all of the locations we had been to, we hadn't taken a single panoramic shot! In fact, I don't think either of us have ever taken one on a DSLR, they have always been with the iPhone. Time to put that right:
Before the cloud fully covered the sky, we had a few brief moments of sun on the foreground at the summit:
Soon after this it started to rain just a little, the wind picked up and it got very cold. In some ways it was a blessing because it meant we didn't have to worry about missing an epic sunset. We could gather our things up and start the long walk back to the car in as much light as possible. It was great timing actually, by the time we got to the bottom of Jabob's Ladder (the really steep steps!) it just got dark enough to need torches. We were absolutely knackered by the time we got home and very much aching, but at least that was one of the Kinder Scout locations done, just one more to go! Fingers crossed for dry conditions again! And thanks again to James Pedlar for the assist and company (even offered to give away his Freddo bar, how generous!).