Thursday March 18th

 St. Patrick's Day!

What a day, and what a walk!

Although the Snake Pass was closed, we decided that we wanted to do a walk from the road running beside the Derwent and Howden Reservoirs that are closed at the weekend. This gave us the opportunity to stop off at the Fairholmes Car Park/Cafe/Duck Haunt and enjoy a coffee, converse with the ducks and for one of the party to enjoy a veggie sausage bap with lashings of brown sauce.

A duck on the scrounge

Having taken this essential break we parked up at the Fagney Plantation and walked along to the bridge at Slippery Stones where the bridge takes the path over the Derwent to its eastern bank and winds its way past Humber Knolls,

The path below Humber Knolls

Coldwell Clough and up Hoar Clough, which needed a little climb. We took the eastern side, which had the vestiges of a path- precarious in places! 
Hoar Clough from below, with Shepherds Meeting Stones on the skyline

At Shepherds Meeting Stones we had a quick pitstop before striking out into the "pathless terrain", according to the guidebook. At the barely perceptible watershed we turned left/west and followed the muddy tracks/peat groughs and path (such as it was). Finally, the Grinah Stones appeared,
The Grinah Stones from afar

complete with the supposed "Shark Rock", visible perhaps only to those with a vivid imagination.
The alleged "Shark Rock" at the Grinah Stones

We followed the path round to the Barrow Stones- amazing shapes and contortions weathered by the wind throughout.


Weathered rocks at the Barrow Stones

The route took us down from the Barrow Stones and up the nose of Round Hill and over more boggy terrain until we met the well-made track which took us back down to the Fagney Planation. We had lovely views and light all the way down. 12.7 miles and 770m ascent in all.

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