Saturday 28th February with mist, cloud and a bit of rain saw another Mountain House Intermediate Navigation Course up on Kinder Scout. Deanna, Mark, Craig, Richard. John, and x met up with Mike and Jane from Mountain House at Barber Booth for a 9.30am start.We walked to Upper Booth and ascended Crowden Brook to the “Edge Path.” Here we put on waterproofs as it started to rain. We then commenced several legs of micro navigation relying on compass and pacing in the limited visibility. Our micro navigation took us to two aircraft wrecks and on to Crowden Head 631m. It had stopped raining by the time we reached the 2nd aircraft wreck so we had a brief lunch stop.
From Crowden Head we switched to “Macro” navigation techniques, locating gullies that would take us to the River Kinder and on towards Kinder Gates. We practised timing our walking between Kinder Gates and Kinder Downfall confirming that we were walking at 4Km per hour. The mist was now clearing and we had good views from this point onwards.
For the next leg we were looking for another aircraft wreck. The nearest easily definable point en route was Red Brook. We used our timing skills to confirm that we were there and proved it by taking a back bearing on The Mermaids Pool. We paced from Red Brook and found our objective, the wreck of Handley Page Hampden Mk.I AE381 which claimed the lives of 4 airman in 1942.
From the wreck we used more general macro navigation to get us to Kinder Low trig point and Noe Stool. Our objective from Noe Stool was another aircraft wreck. Following the edge path to a certain stream we then descended to a point where there was a widening in the contours and picked up the 550m contour, “contouring” around to the wreck. Spot on!
It was only another 100m to the next wreck which we found by compass bearing and pacing.
We descended the Cloughs steeply to the bottom of the Jacob's Ladder path and followed the road track back to our cars. Just over 7 hours from start to finish.
One of the best features of a hard day in the hills is the camaraderie which is usually further cemented by going for a couple of beers afterwards. This day was no exception and we made our way to The Rambler’s Inn at Edale for a final debrief. A grand day out!
