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.