Escape to Continue

This route ended up at about 8 miles and 1800 feet of ascent, somewhat more than I’d intended it to because of difficulties route finding whilst running. I often found myself on dead-end paths finishing at a badger sett or pile of empty lager cans depending on whether the users were badgers or teenagers. Nevertheless a great route, but one better walked than run. The first stage gives fine views of High Tor, the limestone crag that dominates Matlock Bath, with the top of the main face 400ft above the river Derwent.

The most obvious rock climb up the crag, “Original Route”, follows a groove and is graded Hard Very Severe. One of the easier climbs on High Tor, but about as hard as I have done. I found it exhilerating and tiring when I inelegantly lead it a few years ago. The sense of exposure above the A6 is incredible but not as intimidating as some other routes. When I arrived at the top, where the path comes within a few feet of the edge, I was interrogated by a passing tourist as to whether I had “just climbed that”. Sometimes sarcasm really is the only answer. I then brought up my two partners, one of whom was whey-faced and beaded with sweat. Perhaps he had been “seized with appalling apprehensions” as suggested in the excerpt from the Reverend Richard Ward’s snappily titled “A Guide to the Peak of Derbyshire Containing a Concise Account of Buxton, Matlock, and Castleton, and Other Remarkable Places and Objects Chiefly in the Northerly Parts of That Very Interesting County”.

Of course, fear is a very personal thing and we all have our irrational little phobias. Sybil Fawlty’s mother for instance “Sybil’s mother is a bit of a trial, being afraid of rats, doorknobs, birds, heights, open spaces, confined spaces, footballs, bicycles and cows. And death. She’s always on about death.” As my route approaches the village of Bonsall it awakens one of my own fears. Alien abduction. Bonsall has a reputation, not just as a lovely Derbyshire village, but as a hotspot of alien activity. One of the many examples was in 2000 when a Bonsall woman, Sharon Rowlands, captured video footage of a UFO flying above Bonsall. The footage was considered so convincing that it was hurriedly bought up by an American film company. There have been many such sightings near Bonsall over the years and the Barley Mow now hosts The International Bonsall UFO society meet each month.

In August 2007 several people reported seeing lights hovering over Belper. The Ripley and Heanor News subsequently ran a story claiming that the lights were not alien spacecraft but Chinese lanterns, sold by a Ripley firework shop to an unindentified woman from Marlpool and launched the same night as the sightings. A hasty cover-up operation clearly. I keep running.

The Barley Mow also has an annual international hen race.