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Day 1 – Sutton Moor BT tower to Combs Valley Camp Site
I’ve been given a beer by a gregarious couple out doing their regular camping thing but this time doing it with their daughters in tow. I’m zipped up in my tent listening to them have their holiday. I think they’d have liked to hang out but I was only fit to cook my dinner and…
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Day 2 – Combs Valley Campsite to Kinder Downfall
I’m on Kinder, back from the edge sheltered from the wind by large hags and on ground that hopefully won’t saturate if there’s heavy rain tonight. Currently it’s pretty still but anything can happen up here. My altimeter app says I’m at 566 meters.
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Day 3 – Kinder Downfall to Well’i’hole Campsite, Greenfield.
Kinder is always spectacular and I think its northern edge will always be my favorite part, but this walk over Kinder Reservoir – a huge bowl of blank to the left, falling away from the alien boulder-strewn path – was incredible. It was like walking in a split atom of Popol Vuh (spiritually saturated and sonically…
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Interday Pt. 1 – Well’i’Hole Campsite
Alphin Pike at sunset was so beautiful, but the walk to the campsite was a trial. At first, before I took the wrong turn, I was walking down quiet moonlit lanes being buzzed by bats, enjoying knowing I was close to the site. The misnavigation was at the route planning stage. I’d planned this bit…
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Interday Pt. 2 – The Clarence
This is where ‘Neil Dovestone’ had his last documented conversation before he set off to the ‘top of the mountain’. It has a friendly cat, does good pubby food and the bar manager has been great about recharging my travel charger after I found out my adapter was knackered.
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Day 4 – Greenfield to Blackstone Edge
I had my first bit of horizon cynicism at the campsite. After explaining what I was doing to campsite staff, Jack said flatly, ‘you can’t see Winter Hill from Manchester’. It might be true that he’s never seen Winter Hill from Manchester, but in the right place and on the right floor it’s there alright…
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Day 5 – Blackstone Edge to Jackson’s Moor. 12 Miles.
It was like I was on Kinder in the morning fog again, surrounded by gritstone outcrops and enveloping blankness as I got my stuff together for today’s miles. Having less of them ahead today than I’ve had so far I’d allowed myself a lie-in. I set off at 10am expecting a gentler day rambling around…
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Day 6 – Jackson’s Moor to Wayoh Reservoir.
Pretty much constantly as I walk there’s a tune playing in my head. Often it’s a well-known song that’s just beamed in there – I’ve had Ramones, Al Green, Marvin Gaye, Shirley Bassey, ‘and many more’ all cycling about this week. Sometimes it’ll be a more beloved thing from my past listening like a Hüsker Dü…
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Day 7 – Wayoh Reservoir to Winter Hill.
I have a problem with the idea of a ‘challenge’, when it comes to outdoorsy persuits like this. This whole horizon walk thing has certainly had aspects to it that are challenging and there have been plenty of times where I’ve felt challenged – but this isn’t ‘a challenge’.
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Epilogue
Unresolved feelings niggled and persisted. The couple of miles that I’d chopped out of the route on that sodden last day; the feeling of missing out on experiencing the visible drawing-closer of Winter Hill to the point where I was finally on it; the feeling of being denied the satisfaction of gazing over the whole…