KATE MARTIN: Hello and welcome to the National Trust podcast in

this mini episode. I'll be talking with Paul Besley from

the Mountain Rescue team in the Peak District.

PAUL BESLEY: I am a writer who specializes in the Peak District

National Park. I'm also a ranger for the National Park and a

member of a Mountain Rescue team that's in the National Park.

I've been walking here about 40 years now since I was about 14,

When I did my first walk.

A friend and I had got a little book from our school library and

it told us about a walk that went from Crowden to Edale

across Kinder.

And so we thought that that's what we'd do. Kinder was the

place that I wanted to go to because my brother had told me a

story about the climber had died on Kinder and I was fascinated

by this. So from the very start, Kinder was a place of awe.

So we set off from Sheffield from the Pond Street bus station

and we didn't really know what we were doing or where we were

going and we didn't have a map and we just started walking and

then a thunderstorm arrived it rained heavily.

I didn't know it at the time, but it's a pretty standard dark

peak storm. So very black sky. It went very, very dark. It got

very cold. The wind became really ferocious

And you literally couldn't see your hand in front of your face.

It was very terrifying.

We was two, 14 year old boys walking along the wooded road

with huge trucks thundering past them. We knocked on a house, a

farmer's house to ask them if they'd take us in and they

slammed the door on us because they didn't know what they were

getting.

So, so we were left to walk. So we hid in a telephone box

outside the old youth hostel at Crowden until his- my friend's

dad came and picked us up.

And then like it often does in the dark peak, the storm

finished and the sun came out and it was beautiful and there

was steam rising from the pavement.

It was a- it was a kind of a- a light that just illuminated

everything and it made everything very, very vivid.

And in some ways, it started something off. It started the

walking.

And then life got involved in the walking, stopped for a while

and I came away from the Peak district because I was busy and

I had a career and I was abroad a lot.

And then I started walking again.

And actually, if you just do things in small steps you can

actually have some really good adventures.

To learn to read a map and use a compass, took me about probably

about a year and I took some lessons as well.

And I, I walked with people that knew how to navigate and they

asked me to navigate little legs for them. So I built up my skill

level and I also started to understand exactly what the map

was telling me. The contours are key.

One of the things, why Kinder is so difficult and why it does

require a great deal of respect is that it is subject to the

weather.

So weather comes in from the west, it gets the weather first

so the weather can change very quickly on Kinder and it can be

covered in low cloud.

So visibility can be extremely poor.

In winter, if you end up with a white out- because Kinder is

virtually flat. If you end up with heavy heavy snow you can

actually be in a situation where you can't tell the ground from

the sky and that's called a white out.

And a white out is basically when everything looks just

white. So there is no difference between the ground and the sky.

It's just like looking at a blank sheet of paper. So there

are no reference points, there's no up or down or anything and

negotiating across Kinder in them sort of conditions does

require very, very good skills. And, nerve really to trust those

skills and that's where people go wrong. They forget they stop

trusting the map and the compass.

The best way to enjoy Kinder is to go on a guided walk and go

with the rangers and the wardens and let them take you up there

and show you what Kinder's like in full safety.

And that's the best way to start enjoying Kinder. And then after

that, get yourself a map and compass, make sure you can read

it, make sure you know how to use the compass and make sure

you know how to use both of them together.

And then just have a walk up, Grindsbrook.

Go to the top of Grindsbrook and then come back down, come back

down, Grindslow Knoll.

Down to Edale, have a pint in the nags head next week, maybe

have a walk over to Kinder downfall. Do the mass chess pass

walk, anything like that, but just take it in little stages

until you feel confident enough and you'll just have some

fantastic days.

KATE MARTIN: Thanks for listening to this week's

National Trust mini episode.

If you're interested in getting up to scratch on your map

reading skills, sign up to one of the National Trust courses,

head to nationaltrust.org.uk.

Join us next week to hear about the myths that flow in the water

of Kinder Scout Mermaid pools. Until then from me, Kate Martin.

Goodbye.