Tuesday January 6th

Margery Hill and Outer Edge

David, Paul, Greg and Mike

David met with Paul, Greg and Mike at the Langsett Reservoir car park for one of our periodic walks. Paul and I had been rained off our walk up towards Cut Gate End some time ago, and before that Paul had had an unwelcome mud bath. Despite the heavy mist, we were optimistic about getting a good walk this time.

Because of the recent snow and freezing weather, it was icy underfoot from time to time. Mike had his Kahtoola microspikes and I regretted leaving my lightweight crampons in the car! 

The way up to Cut Gate End always takes longer than I anticipate and this was exacerbated by the lack of visibility. When we got there, we headed off south east to Margery Hill where a couple of other walkers kindly took a summit picture.

Greg, Mike, Paul and David at Margery Hill trig

The way up was made somewhat disconcerting as we could hear the wailing of a siren, reminiscent of an air raid warning, for ten minutes or so, before the steady "all clear" much to my relief.

We returned to Cut Gate End and decided that we were not ready to go back to Langsett yet. We crossed over to the path towards to the trig at pt. 541 above Outer Edge, where we had lunch. Just as we decided against navigating a relatively unfamiliar path in the mist and to return the way that we had come, the mist lifted and we had really good views.

Outer Edge Trig
Back Tor on the Great Ridge just discernible

With this improvement, we decided to continue north to return a different way.

Mike, Greg and Paul on Outer Edge

The path down beside Harden Clough, although marked on maps, is narrow and indistinct but we all found our way down to the Little Don River our own ways. This was crossed, either by shuffling along astride a pole across it, or by hopping from rock to rock avoiding icy patches.

We returned to the cards along (generally) good paths after a walk of 10.3 miles with 580m ascent.



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