Distance: 12.7 miles
Ascent: 500m
Weather: cloudy, drizzle, light rain
Feet: wet
Trouser decisions: bad
Bog cotton, cuckooflower, buttercups, curlew, grouse, golden plover, pippets, geese and goslings.
Needing to put fuel in the car led to a last minute change of plan - well, vague idea would be more of an accurate description - and we decided to walk from the car park on the A62 near Standedge Edge, which is next to Brun Clough Reservoir.
From the car park we headed towards Black Moss Reservoir, and up into the clag.
The original Pennine Way route went up over White Moss but was moved years ago. Thankfully there is a line of stone flags now, so it's not crossing a bog in a fog... not all the way, anyway. The stone path stops at the road and from there over Dean Head Moss to Black Hill you are left to pick your own route - we followed a line of posts just about visible through the cloud. This runs parallel but to the left of the line on the map, and led us straight to the cairn (plus its monument, otherwise known as Soldier's Lump) on Black Hill.
We stopped here for lunch, and wringing out of socks, before heading down the familiar Pennine Way path. We stayed on the path across Dean Clough (no trouble with floods or bears today) and followed the Pennine Way back, with a slight detour to cross at the end of Wessenden Reservoir and visit the waterfall rather than the steep path down and back up.
There were people with unruly dogs here, resulting in a muddy paw marks practically on my shoulder.
The weather that I commented was coming in, arrived a bit quicker than expected and we got wet. We discussed how wet we were getting quite a lot, while getting wetter. We won't dwell on this.
We were soon back at the car, and very wet indeed.
