Start: Edale Train Station
Finish: Glossop Train Station
Direction: Pennine Way via Jacob’s Ladder, Ashop Moor, Doctor’s Gate
Time: (Including picnic, panic, slow pace & chippy tea) 8 hrs
Distance: Approx 14 miles
Midnight smiles still beaming from a legendary encounter,
alarm bells sound to foresee the drama,
spluttering mayo, double crunch and stove stowed,
all red lights out, a race with a diesel carriage.
Advice misjudged for morning misjudgements,
a rogue couple adventures away from convention.
Absent caffeine and absent minds that don’t follow,
the lone wanderers before breakfast.
These shadows, their history reminds us,
to toast these memorable climbs.
Cooper’s basecamp departed, red connections left behind,
smiles are now on the Way.
Slabbed underfoot, with a farmer of sorts,
lost in quiet contemplation across vast valley vistas.
Flanked by pine, watched on by ewe and them,
we cross a valley of Hope.
With clucks and purrs, we weave to the Ladder,
ascending towards misty heights
with haunting, human silhouettes riding the valley,
black citadels with painted faces look on.
Pathless, they laugh and call from all around,
wild families perch on rocky faces.
Red river greets us with familiar faces,
before looking out to the distant mermaid.
Lunchtime city mist angles to greet us,
high vantage of local sources, bubbling fir as our respite,
the crystals flicker across the collapsing gorge.
We head for the Snake.
Push on to Bleaklow, heather amassed,
bleak and low, slabs are our guide,
steps shorten, shadows lengthen,
as faces curl and smiles fade.
Across the concrete, no more,
but so much Moor, the hidden Doctor
left only a stake or straight on towards the Devil?
Or was it the Devil left?
Romans forged our way, but we hobbled
over crumbled pathways & fords,
sliding and squelching as the blue hue descended,
Autumn dusk is unforgiving.
Which way? Through a candlelit darkness,
short steps rejoin the Snake,
that slithers us back to the familiar,
You will wish you had never heard of this Way he said.
the rewild 