{"id":859316,"date":"2026-03-26T19:24:29","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T19:24:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dpfr.org.uk\/wp_dpfr\/?p=859316"},"modified":"2026-03-28T11:00:32","modified_gmt":"2026-03-28T11:00:32","slug":"the-end-of-winter-25-march-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dpfr.org.uk\/wp_dpfr\/859316","title":{"rendered":"The end of winter? – 25 March 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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, gloves (except Andy of course), and neoprene socks. We were prepared for a full winter experience, forecast with rain, snow, hail, some sun, strong Arctic winds and a feels like temperature of minus 12\u2070C on Kinder, where we were heading. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reluctantly, we emerged from our warm cars for our descent directly into the woods with no gentle limbering warm up. Any purist athletes would not be pleased with that nor even with the start of the climb which is essentially a rocky stream, thus justifying the choice of neoprene socks. The final verdict on them will come later! However, we should be grateful that it\u2019s not a brutal climb so we could potentially enjoy it, perhaps. Our reward was some gentle pasture land taking us to the col and our first view of the distant snow-covered hill tops of Mam Tor and co, grand! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Distant snowy hills<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We were not so ambitious as to go there, instead, our more immediate modest ambition was to reach the amphitheatre of the quarry and its stately rock chair via a descent to Jaggers Clough (neoprene socks still useful). At the quarry we convened an EGM, (we did have a quorum) but because of the exhilarating conditions, we voted to continue discussions afterwards at the pub where a significant decision was to be made. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
At the quarry amphitheatre. Photo thanks to Michael<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

There is an escape route from the amphitheatre which involves a bit of scrambling over some slippery rock, happily the queuing support method of exiting the quarry saved some of us from toppling down without causing a domino effect. We survived.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s not possible to go on a Serous Warts outing without a battle with some knee-high heather or vegetation, so, accordingly, we ploughed on to Nether Moor which has a height of either 442m on the OS map, or 444m on the Harvey map, take your pick! The difference may be due to the heather depth or the height of the temporary cairn? We continued upwards taking advantage of the mown heather which after a few years of growth is now starting to lose its easy running texture.  Having been sheltered a bit from the Arctic wind between Jaggers Clough up to the edge of Kinder, we could now enjoy its full strength and its snow\/hail blasting to the full. Maintaining balance on the edge was an option to be hard fought for, all the way to Crookstone Knoll. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
On the way to the Knoll. Photo thanks to Michael<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Despite last week\u2019s blog causing some concern about the number of photographs taken and used, a call was made at the Knoll, for more to be taken, so we did, with apologies to the complainant. As you can tell from below, it was cold, very cold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
At Crookstone Knoll. Photo thanks to Michael<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It didn\u2019t take long for us to leave the cool summit to seek shelter from the hail and snow blasting and escape to the track near Blackley Clough for an exciting slide down through the woods. There was still a vestige of winter (if what we\u2019d just been through was not enough), it was getting dark. This was enough to encourage me to put on the head torch, so risking falling over on the steep slippery slope, I fiddled and faffed about for far too long to get it on and working!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By this time, and back at the cars, we enjoyed the be-puddled and muddy changing facilities. Up to now the neoprene socks had worked well, I had warm and wet feet, so far, so good. But, getting them off took a deal of stretching and grunting to actually remove them from my feet. I blame surface tension and general self-weakness, so make sure you\u2019ve developed a technique to quickly remove wet neoprene socks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the YBH, there was a bit of a tragedy in that there was no draft pale ale, so some of us had to take the only draft beer left, Barnsley Bitter. Sometimes you have to suffer\u2026\u2026\u2026 Nevertheless. It didn\u2019t restrict our wide-ranging discussions enlivened by veteran Dark Peakers, Dave L, Roger B and Bob M who were all well ensconced. There was some talk of who should be the next club President, an agreed name was put forward and this is to be submitted to the DP Committee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It had been a grand outing with a complete summary of all the weathers we\u2018d had during the season; can the coming summer season match it? Let\u2019s hope it will. It had been enjoyed by all who dared to come out. Thanks all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Graham<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Our route, thanks to Michael<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":73,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[155],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-859316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-warts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dpfr.org.uk\/wp_dpfr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/859316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dpfr.org.uk\/wp_dpfr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dpfr.org.uk\/wp_dpfr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dpfr.org.uk\/wp_dpfr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/73"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dpfr.org.uk\/wp_dpfr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=859316"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dpfr.org.uk\/wp_dpfr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/859316\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":859324,"href":"https:\/\/dpfr.org.uk\/wp_dpfr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/859316\/revisions\/859324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dpfr.org.uk\/wp_dpfr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=859316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dpfr.org.uk\/wp_dpfr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=859316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dpfr.org.uk\/wp_dpfr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=859316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}