“The Crow Stones,” replied Dave without hesitation. “Crow Stones,” nodded Lee in agreement. Decision made then.
This afternoon’s outing was going to be a bit of a mission. Not only would we have to drive for an hour to get to the parking place, but the hike ahead of us looked positively vertical on the map. Still, we all agreed that given the choice between the two, we’d head for the Crow Stones. The Salt Cellar was a strong candidate, but it would have to wait for another time. Much as we’d have liked to, we couldn’t do them all. I’d added forty odd locations to the map and we only had four days here. We wouldn’t even manage a quarter of them. And despite one or two small misgivings about leaving the many paths of Kinder Scout untrodden and the menu at the Nag’s Head in Edale untested, I think the final shortlist was well made. Balanced and eclectic - a bit like the all day brekkie at Morrisons in Buxton.
We’d already had a stiff walk first thing in the morning, rising at four and making for Mam Tor and the famous ridge. By the time we rolled back into Buxton, the step counter was already into five figures. After a few hours of rest and lunch at our favourite supermarket café, we’d retrace our route and head towards the reservoirs of the Derwent Valley, above which lay the lonely Crow Stones. Exactly where remained uncertain - only that they were up there somewhere. I photographed the page from the guidebook and made sure the phone and head torch were fully charged. The online research confirmed the vagueness of the route. Two and a half miles in either direction, much of it an oxygen sapping slog along the merest hint of sheep track through thick layers of bracken and heather. Maybe we’d find it, maybe not. Still, the book promised much to point our cameras at along the way. And while the sky remained steadfastly grey, there was no sign of rain in the forecast. Up in the wide open spaces there’d be nowhere to shelter if the weather took a turn for the worse. We made a mental note to be off the high ground before dark.
Nobody else had parked at the lonely King’s Oak by the head of the Howden Reservoir, northernmost of the three huge basins that supply water to the towns and cities in and around the edges of the Peak District. And while we saw a couple of anglers from a distance by the river, the world here would be ours alone until we returned to the car some hours later. The route described in the guidebook began clearly enough, but would it continue to be so easy to follow as we made it onto higher ground? Would we still have half an idea where we were heading once the “broad rutted path petered out" and we’d need to turn left and follow “an indistinct trod,” to a crash site we might easily miss? "An indistinct trod?" Finding our subject was going to need a degree of resolve, a peppering of luck and a stubborn refusal to give in.
Crucially, we didn’t take the first path that veered off to the right. Goodness knows where we’d have ended up if we did - the Salt Cellar probably - but we pushed on and trusted our instincts, soon finding an unusually green track that branched away from the main trail through the valley and began to gain altitude. Ten minutes later we were faced with any number of “indistinct trods” spreading in all directions as the gradient gathered pace and slowed ours to a breathless trudge. Onwards we staggered, unable to see the Crow Stones. But if we could get up onto the plateau above and find the highest ground, surely they’d reveal themselves? At least the ground was soft and springy, and when the curve finally did level itself out, walking became easy. As long as you were in a “trod.” By this point I’m fairly sure we’d strayed from Derbyshire into South Yorkshire.
After a period of marching across the high ground, we found the trig point, where we stopped to take in the three hundred and sixty degree panorama of at least four counties that were lying beneath our lofty viewpoint. “I think that’s Huddersfield!” I exclaimed, pointing at a tall mast to the north. “Harold Wilson came from there.” For some reason, very possibly the result of oxygen deprivation, Lee became intoxicated with this information, inexplicably excited at the thought of Huddersfield lying somewhere down there in the hinterland. He seemed quite disappointed when I backtracked, remembering that while Huddersfield did have a big pointy thing on a hill that overlooked the city, but this wasn’t it. I’d been thinking of Castle Hill, which I’d been to on my one visit nearly forty years earlier. Later I discovered we’d been looking at the Emley Moor Mast, taller than the Eiffel Tower, considerably more famous than Castle Hill, and just a few miles east of, you’ve guessed it, Huddersfield.
Another thing we could now see from the trig point was what we’d come here for. Below us to the west sat the stones, swathed in lonely moorland, seemingly untouched and unloved. It was clear that only a few deluded souls ever made it this far. There was no obvious “trod” towards them though, and you can’t just go tramping about over the ground disturbing nesting sites at this time of year, so we doubled back, eventually finding another narrow track down from the highest ground and around towards the stones. A few minutes later we stumbled upon the crash site, where more than seventy years ago the crew of three from an ill fated Icelandic Airlines flight lost their lives. A cross marked their names, and for a moment we stood by the rusting remains, not speaking, trying to imagine what must have been going through their minds in those final minutes. Ironic that so many of us have been to photograph a plane wreck in Iceland - but then again everyone survived that one intact. This wasn’t a place for photographs though. We moved on.
And then we were here, at the lonely moorland stones above the deep valley, trying to work out how to shoot them with so little time available. Below us to the south we could see the distant reservoirs and the forest where the car sat waiting for us. We allowed ourselves a maximum of forty minutes, but then spent well over an hour here. The journey back down was fast, easy and uneventful. Whether we got a shot or not, I’ll let you decide, but it was surely an adventure we’ll remember for a long time. By the time I was back at the car, my watch had counted more than thirty-three thousand steps today.
At the top, I sent Ali a humble phone snap of the Crow Stones, so she could see what we’d been up to. “Carn Brea,” came the short reply. And for those of you who don’t know, Carn Brea is a hill with a monument at the summit that stands over the old mining area of West Cornwall, just three or four miles from where I live. You can see it from much of West Cornwall, and in the local area it dominates the landscape like a colossus. I’ve been playing football at the leisure centre that bears its name every Friday for more than twenty years. It seems she thought that I could have avoided all this effort and expense, jumped in the car for about ten minutes and then trotted about fifty yards along the path to a similar viewpoint. Sometimes love hurts you know.
