John Dalton

It was a 3pm start for seven Serious Warts including Jim O who was doing his own thing on the opposite side of the Derwent valley. The remaining six of us were bracing ourselves for a classic brutal start from King’s Tree. In contrast, the short stroll to the river Read more

On the approach to the change to summertime, we six Serious Warts (the fair-weather Warts were strangely absent) chose the Hagg hostel lay-by (unpleasantly littered) for our starting point. Any celebration of the arrival of summertime was very much curtailed: witness our full winter gear, waterproof leggings and tops, hats, Read more

Old men tend to tell tales of their youth, and the Serious Warts are no exception. For those who had been prepared to listen to us (not many, admittedly), we had recounted a recent experience in what we thought were Arctic conditions on the edge of Kinder. However, the Warts Read more

After last week’s gentle downhill start, we reverted to the brutal normality of an uphill one from Birchen Clough from the cars up to anticipated feels like temperatures of minus 4⁰C in the strongish wind. The usual debate started on whether it was better or worse to ascend or descend, Read more

Our recent past outings have been veering on the wild side, with snow and ice at a feels like temperature of about minus 12⁰C, on Kinder edge and semi remoteness at the three sheeper sheep fold near Barrow Stones. Our latest outing was more civilised, it was on the border Read more

Having arrived at the sheepfold, formerly known as the three-sheeper (because, surprisingly, it was thought to hold three of them), we started the now routine discussion of just how many it actually could contain. Certainly, more than three, possibly six but in a flight of fancy, it was suggested that, Read more

It’s mid-February, so what would you expect but winter weather which we six Serious (Slow) Warts certainly did have, on our foray into a feels-like minus 12⁰C. Our start from the Snake Bridge, was just about tolerable, perhaps acclimatising us for the later Artic like conditions. We sauntered up the Read more

We were never more than about a mile from the car park on our latest moderately epic outing from Odin’s Mine. So, it was short, a total of three miles, which took about an hour and a half (at 2 mph) though we ten, including welcome returnees Penny and Sarah, Read more