Pennine Way Day One - Edale to Padfield

Distance: 17 miles
Ascent: 800m
Weather: rain first thing, then cloudy, cool
Mountain hares: lots
Red grouse, golden plovers, Buzzard (Rob saw this, I was watching where I was putting my feet at the time),  bunny, four bees.

As we left Edale in the rain, we heard a murder of crows and then saw a dead blackbird. Hopefully these are not portentous.

The path led through sheep fields with lots of lambs and along the valley from Upper Booth and then up Jacob's Ladder. This was quite steep but not bad. Over Kinder Low and Kinder Downfall we saw no one (but a startled rabbit) and were starting to think this was a bit strange,  when we came upon various hordes.

The rain stopped but it was still quite chill, gloves were put on and taken off a lot.

We stopped for lunch in a sheltered spot and the sun came out briefly. Very glad that we'd brought the flask.

The stone flagged path was quite easy going, but the rocky paths are quite hard work. Bleaklow wasn't bleak at all but very green where it has been reseeded,  and there were lots of birds and hares. Most of them were alive.

The path to Crowden went up a steep sided valley with more up than I expected,  and then down a very steep little path to the Trans Pennine Trail where we turned off down to Padfield (being chased by dark clouds and impending rain) to the Peels Arms.