A fantastic trip down memory lane, to the site of my undergraduate dissertation research project - Crowden Brook, above Edale and below Kinderscout. Back in 2001-02, I made several visits here to monitor erosion on the river banks as part of my degree in Outdoor and Environmental Education at Liverpool John Moores University. Sometimes I went by myself, but usually, I was accompanied by a fellow academic, explorer and/or researcher. The journey from Liverpool, would have been by train to Edale station, before a two-kilometer walk to the base of the brook and the study site. This time (now being the owner of a motor vehicle), we parked in Edale. To save the walk to the end of the road, Dudley gave Mom a lift. There wasn't room for me in the car, so I hitched a lift, by sitting on the boot and gripped on with my fingertips!
Having returned to The Cottage and dug out said dissertation, I was glad to see that all the important people got a mention in the acknowledgments.
Once on the path, we set off upstream, trying to remember where and what we used to measure. I was a damp and misty start, but not raining.
Every now and then we got a glimpse of Crowden Towers up at the top of the mountain and here and there, we found a few spots that we thought we recognized?
One boulder, that gave us shelter from a memorable snowstorm was still there though.
As was the small holly tree, which has grown significantly over the years.
And there had certainly been a bit of additional erosion in places since my study.
We didn't get right up to the summit, but both felt that we'd been far enough, especially when some raindrops started to fall. It was wet enough to get jackets on, but didn't last for long.
Happily, we made our way back down the river to same farm entrance that we'd passed, just as enthusiastically in 2001, as this older photo shows!
The only thing left to do was make our way back along the road to Edale, (where Dudley had been patiently awaiting our return).
With boots off, we all decided that it would only be right to go for a debrief in The Rambler and warm ourselves up with a nice hot lunch. As we sat down at a table, we noticed that it had started pouring with rain outside. Nice timing.
A cup of tea, some soup, a hot meal and a coffee later, we emerged back outside to find some afternoon sunshine was putting in a late appearance. We went our separate ways at Edale and as I drove back up and over the hill, I stopped and jumped out of the van to take in the view that had now appeared.
Traffic and torrential rain made the drive home a slow one, but I arrived back at The Cottage later that night and quickly fell into a deep sleep.
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