The Cheshire Tally-Ho! Hare & Hounds Club is a trail running club – rather an old one at that: we’re the second oldest running club in the country, being formed in 1872 –the oldest club being Thames Hare & Hounds. The Club’s well documented history makes for fascinating reading – a précis can be found here.
Anyroadup, at the end of each season the Club hosts a longer than normal run, a Point-to-Point, aka The Hartley Folly, to which friends and family are invited to take part.
Covid successfully scuppered plans for the P2P in 2020 and 2021, but this year it’s going to happen.
The Plan was to run from Hope in Derbyshire, to New Mills in High Peak – a reconnoitre walk or two was in order:
Under blue skies and warm sunshine I met up with Vinny at New Mills station. This was shorts & T shirt weather – hard to believe we were still in March.
We hopped on the train to Hope, just in time to walk back to NM.
Lose Hill, from the side of Win Hill
Leaving the station we headed north (and uphill), skirting Win Hill, then dropping down to the Hope Valley before climbing up to the heady heights of Lose Hill almost the highest point on the route. I didn’t quite need oxygen – it was a close run thing though.
We sat at the top for a few minutes, slurping coffee, whilst soaking in the beautiful view.
Vinny, waiting for me. Again.
Mam Tor being buzzed by paragliders - loads of them
Turning west, we followed the ridge: Hollins Cross > Mam Tor > Lord’s Seat (this WAS the highest point on the route) > down to the road at the west end of Rushup Edge where we turned north along the Pennine Bridleway.
Rushup Edge attracted a huge number of paragliders - attracted by the great conditions.
The point where the PBW leaves Rushup Edge was the intended tea stop.Tally-Ho! like a nice cup of tea. And cake if there’s any available….which there will be. Obv.
Towards South Head
We continued up by South Head and down to Peep o’ Day to the last climb of the day, up to the northern bit of the Chinley Churn ridge.
Respite followed: downhill to what was once the excellent Grouse Inn in Birch Vale (now sadly a private house), then west along the near as dammit flat Sett Valley Trail, passing by the lovely Sett Valley Cafe (excellent cakes!) back into New Mills.
Sett Valley Cafe
Conclusion: too far, and too hard. To clarify, the distance was fine, as was the terrain – it was just the combination of the two.
A rethink is being rethunk and Plan B is coming together.
Thanks ever so much to Vinny for coming along, being such good company, and helping judge the route.
Plan B will be along shortly.
Where we went:
18+ miles, with far more ascent than is good for a chap.
Interesting (disconcerting?) that the OS app measured this route as 15.5 miles.
When I recorded it using my Garmin Etrex30 it came out at 18+ miles. Plotting the route on a couple of other navigation apps gave me a distance of 17.4 miles.
That looks great, JJ, you're getting some good leg stretches in this great weather. I'm envious!
ReplyDeleteIt HAS been rather glorious, hopefully you be able to get out again very soon!
DeleteGood to see you out having fun(?) in this lovely weather. Good photos too.
ReplyDeleteThanks Dawn, it's a very photogenic area - helped enormously by such great weather.
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