By: Blonde Two
You may have noted from yesterday’s post, that the Two Blondes positioned our Peak District tent (some have called it a palace) carefully so that we could take in the stunning views of the Mam Tor ridge as we lay abed in the mornings (note – laying abed is not the same thing as sleeping!)
This positioning and our consequent studying of the view, made that particular ridge the perfect choice for our first day’s walk; the perfect choice that is, except for the mist that was hovering over the summits. We could have chosen a lower level walk, but plans are plans and we knew that we wanted the next day (which looked finer on forecasts) available for our assault on Kinder Scout.
The first section of the walk took us on a delightful trail out of Edale, across some rather helpfully pavemented fields and underneath the railway line (which by the way does run all night). All was pastoral, tranquil and, to be honest, quite easy until we hit the pull up to the ridge at Hollins Cross.
Upon attaining the ridge, we admired the view back to our campsite and towards Kinder Scout on the other side of the valley (I should probably call it a ‘dale’). We could still see below us on both sides at this point, but above and towards Mam Tor, all was misty. The perfect excuse for a cup of coffee!
Despite the mist, I really enjoyed the walk up to Mam Tor. It was interesting to be walking on such an orderly footpath and we liked the signage which appeared to be very specific about who was allowed to go where (I can’t imagine that working on Dartmoor).
We had another cup of coffee and got a decent trig photo at the summit,
but had to satisfy ourselves with admiring the views of (and snacking on) Blonde One’s trail mix, as pretty much everything else was obscured.
We were informed by several kind locals that the views were stunning on a clear day.
After dropping down to the road at the Mam Tor cutting (a stunning road entrance into Edale), we climbed up onto the ridge once more and got blown along to Lord’s Seat; a cairn that rather puzzlingly was surrounded by a fence.
We descended back into the dale via a steep (but apparently drivable) by-way and a slightly confusing farm diversion. 
We had developed our own dew point by now and were dripping well, but still happy. Day one of four was complete, spirits were high and there was a pub to explore!
