After my many, many walks up onto Kinder Scout I am finally starting to feel like an expert. This weekend I went for my final 'major' approach to Kinder from the southern flanks, starting at Edale - Crowden Clough. Unfortunately, there is a distinct lack of information regarding the difficulty of each of these 'clough' climbs on the internet (or at least, I couldn't seem to find it) - so I have taken it upon myself to create a series of posts describing each. This is mainly because this most recent approach ended in failure - I knew it was a challenging one but upon reaching a steep scramble/climb at the top had to turn back because not everyone in the party was willing to climb it.
So, for this series of posts I'm toying with the idea of using the following ranking system - as it is what I know...
1) If you're like my Mum - you should probably turn back wherever I insert anything greater than a [1] in the text. This would be if you have absolutely no head for heights. A slanting path about 4 yards up would make you very nervous, anymore and it's too much.
2) If you're like 'old me' - more than happy, if not keen, to be high up, but so long as you have a 'falling gap' - a body length - between yourself and any edge. I'll shove a [2] in wherever this applies. Less than a 'falling gap' and you wouldn't want to be near any physically dangerous edges, or slopes greater than 30 degrees.
3) Current me - the more I walk, the more I desensitise myself. The top of Winnats Pass used to terrify me, all of 6 months ago, but now it is nothing. You no longer need such a large 'falling gap' between yourself and edges, and can generally manage slopes greater than 30 degrees - even if you don't fancy turning round too much on them. Probably somewhere around average. As you may have guessed by now - this would be a [3].
4) The Dan - slightly more adventurous than my current self, but still somewhat sensible (bordering on crazy, especially if paired with no.5 - the two together love to show off). Anyway, a [4] means a Dan can do it.
5) The Dad/Bob- fearless/stupid, whatever you want to call it. You don't care about sheer drops, edges or cliffs in the slightest. A breeze could knock you off? So what, you love to show off and stand on the edge. If I put a [5] you have to be a relative mentalist to give it a go.
Now, this list does not take into account you really outdoorsy types. I love to get out, spent my childhood in the Dales and get out into the Peak whenever I can now - but have little experience on the real mountains, with rock climbing and difficult scrambles. For you people, I'm sure you'll be fine - but this is very much aimed at the regular folk.
So - enjoy the posts and hopefully I'll have finally contributed something worthwhile to the internet.
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