A solo Dark Peak route from Arnfield, approaching Black Hill via Ogden Clough and Chew reservoir and returning over Laddow Rocks and the Longdendale reservoirs. It was designed around two new Dewey 500m tops: Black Chew Head and West Nab.
Astute observers will notice the lack of photo over there –>
Unfortunately I forgot to load the recharged battery into the camera - no photos from this trip I’m afraid, I’ve included it for completeness mainly to keep the cross-references from the Hill Lists up to date, and also to add a few notes on the Dewey tops that may be useful. I had the worst of both worlds:- had I forgotten the camera altogether I would at least have saved the weight, but I had the heavy camera and no means of capturing the walk.
This was probably the last backpack of the season to feature a brief taste of winter: snowing on the tent and a thick frost. The clarity was excellent on the first day with extensive views from West Nab and the northern slopes of Black Hill, while the second day was enjoyable for the sense of walking in a mistbound still silent landscape punctuated only by the occasional call of the grouse.
Other things that went wrong:- when it was nearly dark I groped for my Petzl Tikka Plus and… crack!. A splinter of plastic broke off the body exposing its innards and the batteries flirted out in all directions. Ever tried finding 3 AAA batteries in a Lasercomp tent with next to no light?. I eventually found them by feel but then I had to put them in. I remembered that the middle one lies opposite to the other two and I got it right on the 4th. attempt. Fortunately it still worked.
Pulling out the pegs from the snow, one of the elastic cords of the tent broke. I’ll have to use Dyneema to replace it but that isn’t elastic, unless someone knows of a very strong elastic cord. I could beg some from Terra Nova I suppose.
5 Comments
Geoff - pity you forgot the camera battery, I know how you feel though, I’ve done on a couple of occasions before now! I always keep a spare set of batteries for the camera in the bottom of my bag now.
Gary ….
Been up Black Hill before but never from that direction. So a pity there’s no photos.
Oh well!
Phil
Strange about the battery, it’s only a tiny fraction of the total weight but the moment I lifted the camera out of the case I knew something was wrong, I could detect the difference. Still, it was a good walk with some new stuff.
> Ah, what do we have here? Anything interesting? Are we going to have a report.
Lost a piece there - I was talking about “some new stuff”