This months walk saw a great turnout and some decent weather for this spectacular 9 mile circular walk over open moorland, including two trig points for the trig baggers, joining the Pennine Way and that final wow factor, the breath taking decent down Crowden Valley.
A quick meet and greet and today our group photo was taken by Dusty who came to wave us all off at the starting point at Crowden Car Park, unable to join us for the walk this time due to a healing injury, (see you soon Dusty!)
All 26 of us set off and straight into the brutal, short but steep accent to the top of Loftend Quarry. After catching our breathe briefly we were more than happy to let Trudge and Keith guide us up and around to Hey Edge trig point, something me and Sam have managed to miss on 3 occasions, but today we managed to bag it. A photo opportunity and an interesting fact talk by Trudge on the origins of the humble Trig, a topic our Trudge never tires of, to date he's bagged (along with his partner in crime Tracy) 492 of them! and that's at time of writing this. The man is on a quest.
We left the rain cloud behind us at Hey Edge and we were ready to tackle open moorland. Surprisingly easy on us, Hey Moss is usually a difficult bog terrain to navigate around. We snaked our way over to West End Moss and over Tooleyshaw Moor and touched our 2nd lump of concrete of the day - Black Hill Trig. The obligatory photo selfies and we dip down into a sheltered spot for lunch.
The Pennine way is easy footing and allows you to take in your surroundings, its also an anti-social path for a group and had us single file all the way taking in the stunning and epic views down Crowden looking over to Torside on the other side of the valley.
Laddow Rocks is a sheer rocky outcrop with amazing views over the rugged moorland. Matt braved the blustery winds that had picked up for that epic shot not to be missed! we didn't encourage anyone else to teeter out on the edge, doesn't say much for our friendship with Matt but heyho!
We stayed on the blustery but warm Pennine Way all the way down to the carpark, taking our time to take in the sights and hopefully a possible sighting of the Lancaster Bomber that was due to fly past, unfortunately we didn't catch a glimpse of the plane but it was laughs and giggles as usual as the walk came to end back at Crowden Carpark.
We want to take this opportunity to showcase a great little campsite that we and some of the Herd stayed at the night before the meet. We stayed at Crossgate Farm Campsite at Tintwistle Glossop, a great location for any planned walks on Kinder, Bleaklow and Crowden.
We had a great stay and a lovely breakfast next morning in the on site cafe. The site owners were friendly and helpful, the pitch field is sloped in most areas but don't let it put you off, we shall return to the site for definite in future.
Anyone interested in, or know of any good campsites for future Herd Meets let us know and we shall try to add this to the walking and events page throughout summer.
It was a great meet up this Month, our group walks are a great way to meet with friends and make new ones, its always a great crowd and we look forward to meeting you all again soon. If you joined us on this one or any other of our walks we'd love to hear from you in the comments below, let us know how you found the hike and what was the highlights, was it tough going? Too slow, too fast? You can share your photos of the day (or anything else you've been up to) on our group facebook page, its a great way to keep in touch with all the Herd and to see what's coming up next.
Until the next one guys.
Onward!
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