"...the eternal rocks beneath" - Emily Bronte in "Wuthering Heights"
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| Looking eastwards to Seal Edge from Fairbrook Naze |
I was so energised by my recent arduous ramble to the Kinder Scout plateau that I decided to go back yesterday morning. The weather forecast was promising but it was raining when I parked up close to "The Snake Pass Inn", by the two lane A57 which weaves its way over the dark Pennine uplands to Lancashire.
After the rain shower had passed, I donned my boots and ventured down through the Snake Woodlands and into the valley of the River Ashop - which at this point is no more than a bubbling mountain stream. Onwards, over tributary streams gurgling with peaty water, trying desperately not to slip and tumble over. To my left, "The Edge" loomed - the northern fringe of the Kinder plateau - where the underlying and unclothed millstone grit is exposed to the elements. This was my objective.
After a couple of miles, another rain shower began to spit so I donned my blue cagoule and continued through bogs, clumps of saturated moorland grasses and over rust-coloured rivulets towards the path that would lead me up to The Edge. After half an hour, the rain petered out and soon I was up there in sunshine. Miles away to my left, I could see Manchester's sprawling urban jungle languishing under leaden skies and far to the east shafts of heavenly sunlight illuminated Sheffield - my home city - in ethereal light.
And so to The Edge - that's what it's called. Not Kinder Edge or Ashop Edge, simply The Edge like that miserable millionaire guitar player in U2. All the way along The Edge the weather behaved itself and I was treated to some wonderful sights. Or maybe it's just me. Perhaps others might dismiss what I saw as "just a bunch of stones" - and not "the eternal rocks beneath", again sculpted by wind and rain and frost and time into magnificent shapes set in dramatically wild upland scenery. In no particular order, here's a sample of images from yesterday's walk...
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| Pointing the way from The Edge |
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| Seal-like outcrop on The Edge |
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| Rocks and sky at Fairbrook Naze |
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| Rocks on The Edge with view to Bleaklow |
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| Iguana-like outcrop with Ashop Head beyond |
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| "The Boxing Glove" outcrop on The Edge |
*all these photos are copyrighted
