Well today was the hardest walk I have done in years, not that the walk itself was the toughest, just that I didn't feel great and struggled. In fact during one section of about a mile I had to stop 4 times for a rest as I felt light-headed and just had no energy.
I met Darrell in Edale village around 7:45am, only the two of us today as most were busy, and Colin pulled out this morning stating that he didn't feel well. Which to us, knowing Colin, meant that he was hungover.
We knew we were going to head up Kinder, but hadn't really planned a route so after walking up through the village we decided to go for the Grindsbrook Clough route. I have done that route up on two occasions in the past, once on my own, and once with Malcolm.
Now I won't say that it wasn't a challenge on those occasions as it's fairly steep and very rocky, but both times I managed it with little fuss. But today I just didn't have any energy, I found each clamber over the rocks just sapping the energy from me. To be honest I did feel on occasions like just turning back, but Darrell's encouragement helped me overcome the lack of desire.
But, in SAS fashion I managed to soldier on, and as we arrived at the top of the clough I felt such relief. I had summited my Everest.
But the rewards are plenty, as you walk along the southern edge of the plateau there is so much to see, so many rock formations, walls of peat topped by heather, and the views over Edale are beautiful.
We crossed over the the trig point at Kinder Low before heading back down Jacobs Ladder, which was heaving by now as we were closing on mid-day. It wasn't easy on the knees and did seem longer than when you are walking up it, but we eventually arrived at the small bridge over the stream at the bottom of the 'ladder' without suffering too much. Time for a short break before heading back the last couple of miles to the car-park.
We had walked over 10 miles and with around 2,000ft of ascent, so I had earnt my rest.
Comments
Post a Comment