Glossop to Greenfield Walk

Dave Wrights write up on a very wet walk:

Glossop to Greenfield : My Walk Report

The weather forecast being very wet and windy, at 9.03, a grey mist on the rain’s face and a grey dawn breaking, there I was standing alone outside Glossop railway station holding a thought of maybe returning into it for the next train when who should come up to me but South Manchester member1979A, aka Dave Allen Chairman (current Chairman)  in his capacity as Only Other Walker for my walk.

The rain then paused for us and we made good progress up to Devil’s Elbow around which point I was distracted by him talking about something or other causing us to end up on an enforced tour of the hill between the Glossop to Longendale road at the top and the Trans Pennine Trail down below, an area in which oddly quite a few former footpaths seem to have been blocked.

Climbing back up to the road we then went along it down to a different footpath which went through a tunnel to Torside reservoir from where we followed the Pennine Way up to Laddow Rocks then across the desolate moors to Chew reservoir and then  the road from there to Dovestone reservoir down below.

Dave mentioned that during his car journey to Glossop a song called “You are crazy” suddenly came over on his radio. During our walk we saw no other hikers. Dave said he glimpsed some at the top of Laddow Rocks but I, not having my glasses on, missed them. Earlier we had an encounter down below in the Crowden Great Brook valley with a young couple unsure where they were going who said hello to us. The woman did not look very happy and the man asked where we were off to. Arguably they  were not proper hikers as they had no rucksacks plus they seemed in effect about to “do a runner” by which I mean I think they were secretly hoping we could find them a way out of their walk.

Of the notoriously boggy bit between the border fence and Chew reservoir, Dave commented “it was good fun.” I thought to myself “…though maybe not much.” The best part of the whole walk I found was walking down the road as by then albeit windy, it was getting warmer.

Near the end of the walk we stopped at a café in which about half the population of Greenhill appeared to be inside. The coffee that I had was a designer one as it had a picture of a leaf on the top. A waitress also offered me a plate of vegetable soup, which turned out to be Dave’s , which he later said was very enjoyable.

We did not have to wait long before the train came. It was quite a quick journey to Manchester Piccadilly. I got back in my house at about 4pm, which I found quite a nice time to return after a walk. Well, in my walk leader unbiased opinion It was a good walk . We had had a day out of the house, plenty of exercise and during the rest of the day were able to enjoy not walking better than otherwise.

Happy walking.