All paths, no rough stuff, what’s happened to the Slow Warts? The combination of hard Alpine walking and some serious Yoga (Moz suggested he’d fallen off his Yoga mat) had scuppered Andy for today’s outing from the Snake bridge. However, we did enjoy the crossing of Fairbrook to remind our feet of the joys of cold water. Our junior member, Anna, managed to skip across without that pleasure and in so doing claimed the bragging rights for her dry feet.
Memories of the original Marsden to Edale race came flooding back as we climbed up Gateside, this time, though, walking not running, it still felt just as hard. Regrouping at Seal Stones to admire the view and to photograph our heroic selves, we continued our very gradual transition from runners to photographers. There were more photograph breaks to come.
We seemed to be on a circular trajectory (see below for Chris’s track) and any thoughts of going to either Crowden Head or the Aztec Stone would have marred that plan, so we didn’t go to either of them. Also, this shorter route would have avoided any headtorch battery use. So, we continued on the satisfyingly semicircular edge run to the head of Fairbrook.
Somewhere on route, Anna had noticed a group of rocks, not sure where, resembling a pile of dinner plates awaiting washing. Given the Slow Warts’ tendency for honouring (?) members by naming stones, etc. after them (e.g. Bob’s Rock, Tom’s Tree….), should they be renamed Anna’s dinner plates? With such problematic thoughts, we headed off to Fairbrook Naze to gaze at and enjoy the spectacular vista of almost all of the Derwent Watershed.
There are at least three descent lines off the Naze, one straight down continuing over a significantly boggy area, another to descend from the col below the Naze to join the rocky Fairbrook path and lastly, to join the quad/Landrover track. Firstly though, the rocky path from the Mushroom Stone had to be tackled by “trickling” down, a slow careful rock hopping experience. The latter of the three descents had been recently reused so was easily recognised from the new tracks and provided a fast and soft descent to the Snake Bridge, wonderful!
It is thankfully rare to report anything about the goings-on at our car parks, but in his attempt to reach the pub quickly, Michael decided to shed his loaded car by leaving his back door open. However, before leaving a trail of sweaty underwear, etc. down the road, the draughty car stopped amid a welter of flashing lights, to shut the door.
As always, there was a warm welcome at the YBI where training schedules were discussed by the younger, keen members before Andy arrived to chastise us for a short (by now we were on our second pints) outing omitting Crowden Head and the Aztec Stone and not needing to use headtorches. Despite this, we still declared we’d had a good outing. Thanks to all.
Graham
