Up On Bleaklow With Chris

The walk didn't turn out as planned today. The original plan was to go up on Bleaklow and try to locate some aircraft wrecks. There are quite a few on the plateau, but there are four main sites that most people visit. All we ended up doing though was getting pretty close up views of the aircraft circling above Manchester Airport waiting to land.

Chris, like myself, has Asperger's syndrome, and this can affect the way he thinks and behaves at times. For him, going on a walk is only about putting one foot in front of the other, the miles covered, and the altitude gained...there is no time for stopping to admire the view and taking photographs, or looking at the map and planning a route ahead, stopping for a rest...or even a pee. There were clearly defined paths, which Chris set off to walk along, and I struggled to keep up. So...we did an eight mile loop; seeing none of the aircraft wrecks or the weird and wonderful rock formations for which Bleaklow is renowned. [Something else we didn't see either was trees; there aren't any on Bleaklow, and since we parked up at the summit of the Snake Pass we didn't get to walk through any wooded areas on our approach to Bleaklow Head, the highest point.]

When we returned to the car Chris wasn't able to turn it round to head back towards Bamford, where I planned to catch the bus. So he drove down towards Glossop hoping to find somewhere suitable to turn round. He didn't find anywhere by the time we were approaching Glossop and so I suggested an alternative plan; drive up the road that leads to the Woodhead Pass and then continue towards Barnsley, dropping me off at Dodworth before driving home to Leeds on the M1.

This plan did work out.

I didn't take many photographs today; I didn't have the time to stop, with Chris being maybe a hundred yards ahead and out of earshot. There were good views over to the west of Manchester and beyond; I'm convinced I could see the Clwydian Hills in Wales on the horizon.

The first photograph was taken at Fox House as I was waiting for Chris to arrive in the car.

This one was taken zooming in on Manchester. I've converted it to black and white for extra clarity; you can see individual buildings.

I got a sneaky picture of Chris as he was clambering up the cairn at Bleaklow Head.

The final picture was taken not too far from my house, maybe three hundred yards - it's a scenic shortcut I take when walking home from the bus-stop.