A run over the moors. And back. And over. And back.

Icy and snowy. Mmmm.

Went out for a quick run up on the moors with John and (his dog) Peggy. Semi planned last night and confirmed about half an hour before we set out this morning, the idea was to go and see if we could find a decent line across the top of Kinder as a race line for the up coming Trigger race.
I knew there was meant to be a decent line off in the direction that we wanted to go in, but had no idea how to get there.
I haven't even been to Kinder Gates yet.

We set off from Snake summit, taking quite a radically new line to that which either of us had taken before, quite a decent line, with good running, and soon enough we were at the bottom of the Ashop, looking up at Kinder. A variety of lines beckoned, but we settled on the one that seemed to be the most expedient, and were able to take a bee-line directly to the Trig Point from there.

From the Trig point was all quite straightforward, up from Kinder Downfall to Kinder Gates seemed to work quite well, too.

Kinder Gates

The next bit was the poser.

To cut the first long story short, we found a grough and ran along that, and eventually came to a place of seemingly impassable bog. What does One do when faced with seemingly impassable bog?
Carry on, of course.

We forged our way over the bog in the direction that made the most sense, but when we finally came off the other side, we had completely missed the line that we were looking for. Hmm. Well, a quick run out to Grindsbrook knoll, feed doggy biscuits to Peggy, turn around and come back.

Edale Valley. Lovely.

This time we were approaching the line from the South, and it was impossible to miss. We travelled up it, passed a Shooting cabin with an interesting name, and up the clough until we came to, what do you know... impassable bog.

Right, so we have found a decent way on, and a decent way off, all we need to do is link the two. We tried doing this and squelched our way across the top, vaguely going in the right direction. The occassional thigh deep bog, nearly losing shoes, and general amusements, a load of helicoptor drop bags, vague trails, and eventually we came across.... Kinder Gates.
What?!
Thats not right. How did that happen? Right. A re-assessment of where we went and came from, and back up the way that we went in the first place. Literally running around in circles... We ran up a few promising looking groughs, only to be repelled, on and on, up and down, around and along promising looking places. There is a couple walking a dog along the bog, and they seem to be having a whole lot less trouble than us in making progess. How are they doing that?
We run around in more circles, looking for trails and other bits, eventually we drop over the side of a grough and are about to give up, turning around.... whats that? It looks like a path... we take it, and bang, straight to a part of the downward grough that I recognise. Bingo.  We were going in slightly the wrong direction and were put off by the fake path caused by the river.

The slog home

Just need to retrace it back up- which is more difficult that it seems.

Eventually, we get back over bog, ice, snow, peat and general coldness, over to Kinder Gate, and back across to the trig, over to Featherbed Moss and back to the car. 24km in all, I'm not putting up the GPS track yet. Maybe after we do the race....

Throughout the whole thing I was trying out a pair of Sealskinz socks... a new pair. Feet still cold. I think I may have to stick to wool.