Kinder Scout and US Visitors

This past weekend, we ventured into the Peak District to hike, or walk as the English say, Kinder Scout.  According to wikipedia, Kinder Scout is the highest point in the Peak District and the 2nd highest point in England at 2087 ft.  My good friend Andrew Golomb was in town this weekend so he joined us for the trek.

If you recall our last attempt at a walk, we got pretty lost and ended up climbing through a fence while racing against the sunset to try and find our way back to the pub.  And all that took place on a 3 mile walk through some sheep fields….

So for climbing the 2nd highest peak in England, I was determined not to fail.  I learned from my previous hiking amateurism and went out and spent some money on a map, compass, and waterproof hiking shoes.  I also did thorough research and found a trail endorsed by the National Trust.  So anyway, here is the official route that we followed, highlighted on my fancy new map.

Kinder Scout Route - 7.5 miles

Here we are as we start the hike in the rain.  We were tempted to just skip the hike and go have some pints because of the rain.  The group from left to right is Jeff, Golomb, Megan, me, and Tara.

Here we go...

It started off easy enough, wandering through some sheep fields.  The rain even quit a few minutes into our walk.

All systems go!

Here’s a pretty cool picture.  You can see how big the hills are all around us.

It's all so green. And England claims they are in the middle of a drought. I don't buy it

A mile or two in, we found Jacobs Ladder, which ended up being a really steep zig zagging incline that brings you most of the way to the top of the 2000 foot elevation change.  Here we are at the beginning.

Making it look easy!

At the end up Jacobs Ladder, we were all sweating and huffing and puffing.  And that is even more interesting because the temperature was a lot colder once we got to the top.  At one point it was snowing.  At another point, it was HAILING.  Here’s us looking down once we got most of the way up.  You can’t really see Jacob’s Ladder, but it’s back along the trail somewhere past those really tiny people in the distance.

Looking back on our ascent.

Here are me and Golomb triumphantly standing on top of a huge rock.

Who wears white sweatpants to go hiking in England?

After all that standing on top of rocks, we needed a break.  Good thing we brought apples.

mmm... apples

There was a decent amount of thinking required to keep us on track. We had a route planned out, but there were numerous splits in the trail and sometimes the trail would seem to disappear altogether.  But with my trusty compass and map, I was able to keep us on track.  Here, you can see that me and Jeff are in complete agreement on which way to go.

Which way to the pub?

As promised, here is the snow we encountered on the way to to the top.  That’s how you could tell we were going the right way.

SNOW

When we started seeing the snow, we could tell we were at the top.  It was pretty amazing up there.  There were lots of cool rock formations, tons of peat, and you could see a really long way.  Here are some fancy looking rocks that inspired some artist to make art that resembled these rocks.  I am really bad at remembering potentially interesting pieces of information.

Artistic Rocks

Here is Tara contemplating how to navigate her way through some grade ‘A’ peat.

This is Peat, not to be confused with mud

And here is Golomb, staying as far away from the peat as possible.  Gotta keep those sweatpants looking fly.

Staying on the grass

At one point, we lost the trail and ended up on top of a rock formation.  With the ground being really soft, we decided to jump down onto the mushy grass below.

Jeff is fearless!

Here are some more big rocks that we climbed up.

Big rocks

Shortly after this, it started getting really really cold and windy, so the picture taking slowed down.  We buckled down and forged our way through the rest of the hike.  At the very top, we snapped some quick pictures, but it was very miserable up there.  Now we can say we made it to the 2nd highest peak in England.

We made it!

On the way down, it got warmer really quickly.  It was great.  The sun even came out and me and Tara sat down for a minute to enjoy it.

Good view on the way down

Naturally, the first stop after we made it down the mountain was the pub we passed on the way up.  I asked the bartender for the most refreshing beer on tap, and he said that none of the beers were refreshing.  At least he was honest.  I drank one regardless of the refreshment factor and it tasted great.

Cheers!

Sunday, we tried to show Golomb some more authentic English stuff while he was visiting.  We offered to show him Nottingham or go to a museum or something like.  He ended up choosing to go to an Indian buffet.  To be fair, England does have really good Indian food, so we weren’t going to argue.

Indian food

Monday, Tara’s Aunt Janie came to visit us for a few hours.  Her husband Steve was doing business in London so she took the train to Derby and bought us dinner.  Thanks Aunt Janie!

Aunt Janie

That’s all for now.  Thanks for reading.  Here’s a sheep picture for all you animal lovers out there.

Baaaaaa