The annual pilgrimage to The Wasdale Head Shepherds Meet and Show was a bit different this year.
It was cancelled.
We weren’t to know that as we ventured North then West and decided on an impromptu stop at St Bees beach. An amazing sunset have way to a pummelling by hailstones.
Trying to sleep with the creaking floors and the weather lashing against the Wasdale Head Inn wasn’t really happening.
We had breakfast on Saturday morning and a cursory glance at social media showed a CANCELLED sign on the events socials.
I wandered along the lane to chat to the farmers and they said that the marquees had been taking off overnight. I’ve been visiting the Meet for many years and sponsoring the Herdwick classes for several years and never known it cancelled, but it was the right decision.
So a change of plan. A wet walk that turned in to a dry and cold walk up to StyHead and back down. A soup lunch. A wander up Mosedale. The afternoon and evening were fine and the night sky was starlit.
In the Inn on Saturday night i recognised the standard issue military moustache on a chap that was losing a fight against several bottles of red wine. His legs weren’t doing as they were told. And he had forgotten the whereabouts of his accommodation. I asked who he had served with. ‘Trying to get to me bed’ he replied. ‘I can see that’, said i. He told me he didn’t really know where he was or where his room was. I asked him again who he had served with. ‘Twenty seven years a Royal Marine’ he said. He then recounted all of his postings across the Corps as i walked him to his basha and unlocked it for him. We indulged in a minute or two of Army slagging the Marines and vice versa then i left him and returned to my pint.
Supper in the Inn (the prices have gone up !!) and then yet another walk round the triangle of the Inn – Manse – Church – Inn so Archie could take the night air.
The weather dawned beautifully on Sunday. Hopefully it will be this good at the 2027 Meet. We’ll definitely be there.
In amongst all the shenanigans of the weekend me mate from the Emerald Isle suggested someone (🧐) ought to do an anonymous monthly article for ‘something like Derbyshire Life’ about the mad, bad, hilarious, awful and just plain weird shizzle that goes on ‘round ‘ere’ mostly after dark.
If i did it (😉) i’d call it
‘Down The Park After Dark’.
It’d go something like this
Sunday Night,
A cup of tea and a bowl of cereal at 10pm to take stock. Telling a friend how bonkers the weekend was. Fire tourism continues. Colleagues intercepted folks from London and Leeds on their way to the crags to light fires. A friend rang in a location for smoke on White Edge. Possibly the ‘camping incompetents’ of the year doing their best to emulate Bear Grylls. In their sliders.
Elsewhere four quads tore up the landscape. Another missing jigsaw piece that never got reported to the police rendering them unable to finish the jigsaw.
The end of the night sees a couple clad in denim using a ‘hind caller’ to interfere with the rut and attract stags to the edge of the B6054. They come regularly and have named the beasts. Are they then liable in law when one jumps the fence and interferes with Gaz in his Corsa making his way home from the late shift ? Asking for a friend.
Monday Evening
Monday evening read about Sunday night and said ‘hold my pint’. Snaking across the moors is a tarmac lane. On one 200 metre stretch of it lies the odd, the dead and the dead weird.
A car. We found it last night. The police were very interested in it. They’re still very interested in it, but not enough to move it. The occupants thought they were the Dukes of Hazard. They weren’t. They were stopped by a Duke’s gate.
Fifty metres away the evening sun reflects off an adder on the road. Squashed.
A bit further away a Rural Crime officer switches on his bodycam and explains that he and a ranger are about to lift a pink blanket off a disturbed area of earth. It stinks. They think. And look. And decide that someone has either killed a badger with their car or found a fresh roadkill. The vehicle driver then wrapped the badger in the blanket. Used sticks to dig it a shallow grave in the woods. Put the badger and some kids toys and a fabric rose in the hole. And put the blanket over it. It stinks. Dear reader just place roadkill in the hedgerows for the food cycle to sort. Minus the kids toys though.
Live scenes from the InPost customer services desk ..
Indulge me whilst i vent my spleen a little ….
I sold a thing on eBay on 23/9
The thing was a pair of blue Patagonia trousers.
I sent them asap using InPost. Here’s the tracking number
JJD0002233571451118
The buyer received a parcel linked to the tracking code for my parcel on about the 26th. I too received notification of the delivery and subsequent collection of the parcel.
The parcel the buyer received had no InPost tag on it anywhere.
The parcel contained toddlers clothes.
I had sent blue adult Patagonia trousers
Four days ago InPost said there had been an error at the mailboxes and my parcel was back out for delivery and i could track it.
It wasn’t and i can’t.
The InPost app for myself and the buyer hasn’t changed in 5+ days
Some of the InPost excuses (via AI and ‘human’) include …
•it will be delivered this afternoon (it wasn’t)
•glitch in the system it’s being delivered to another locker today (it wasn’t)
•refresh your app and you’ll see it (i can’t)
•the locker is full – said every day for 4 days (the recipient has received other parcels via InPost to the same mailboxes during the period)
Nothing on the app.
Online AI assistant and ‘human’ assistant either can’t or won’t help.
Phone help line either can’t or won’t help
Buyer has understandably filed for a refund.
InPost seem able to ‘see’ my parcel but won’t tell me where exactly it is. Or they’re just spouting horseshit.
They repeatedly tell me to ‘check my app’ – nothing on there for ~6 days
Any ideas ?
(Other than cough up the refund, lose the trousers and never ever use InPost again ??)
I contacted them on Instagram on Sept 30th. I got prompt ‘help’ aka the previous excuses using different sentences. Apparently mine was a ‘false positive’ delivery. I think that is In-Post speak for they’ve lost it. I was told it would be delivered yesterday. It wasn’t.
So on the 9th day after posting i went again to the online ‘help’ portal to ask for an update ….. and they’ve deleted ‘Mat’ the AI unhelper. So i emailed them. Again.
Update to follow …… or probably just me refunding the buyer and losing the item thanks to In-Post being horseshit.
I’d seen one of Marvin’s siblings on a missing person search recently – it turned a dark night in to bright day and made a significant difference. I thought one would be useful for both my rescue and rangering roles …
Marvin has a twist to close sphincter and a sign telling you not to reach in to his sphincter 😳
Wasn’t long on his first day at work before he got some action checking the margins of a fire site in woodland and showing off his lumens
and not much later he provided flood lighting to the fire and rescue service as they finished off extinguishing an abandoned campfire site that had reignited
*the model name is ‘Olight Marauder2’ and if you’re interested it’s 14000 lumen.
It would be fair to say i sensed tonight might be a bit busy. Some second sense made me change out of my approach shoes and in to my big boots too.
9.20pm ish two blokes with a fire camping in Burbage Valley. The fire was extinguished and they were invited to leave.
The drone pilot was asked to have a last look around the valley before we walked out …..
and reported a fire edge several metres wide further down south in the woodland.
Two of us went on foot and found an area alight and got to work on it with dry bags filled with beck water.
Four more rangers came by vehicle in from Packhorse. @syfireandrescue came in too with Scotty packs and water buckets.
Looks like somebody either today or through last night has had a camp fire and the breeze has reignited the smouldering peat. Had the drone not seen that and the response been swift that woodland would be well alight by dawn.
The fire risk has reduced but not disappeared. Nowt’s changed. Despite everything in the news of late people continue to light fires in the countryside.
A day spent leading a ‘Four Ethels’ walk for @cpre_pdsy as part of @sheffieldwalkingfestival ….
A lovely bunch of folks who got to hear me blether on about all sorts of things relevant and irrelevant whilst being guided on a circular walk from Hathersage to Higger, White Path Moss trig, Stanedge Pole, High Neb trig and back via North Lees.
Showers, 35mph+ gusts, sunshine and views for miles.
Thanks to the group for being good eggs and for their help in dismantling a firewood cache on Stanage.
Thanks to Neill at Stanedge Lodge for the photo of me at the Pole taken from his house.
A pleasure and a privilege to tell a few stories, point out a few things and natter with folks round 10ish miles of the Peak in its late summer garb.
In the Gaelic calendar, the 20th September is traditionally ‘Bhuiridh’, the ‘Day of the Roaring’ as the stags begin vocal challenges to rivals.
If you find yourself near males that urinate on their own legs, puff their chests out and bellow at women …. and it’s not a Saturday night in Wetherspoons, read on …
Deer are iconic beasts of the moors – the largest land mammal in the UK – and September and October of each year is their mating season which is called the rut.
As deer move around the landscape before and during the rut the chances of meeting them in your vehicle increases – particularly at dawn and dusk. Please take extra care driving at these times.
During the rut mature male deer (stags) compete for the attentions of the females (hinds) and will then try to defend the hinds they attract. They put weight on, their necks swell, they urinate a mix of urine and semen on to their legs, and they rollin mud and collect foliage on their antlers to increase their attractiveness to the hinds and make themselves look more fearful to other stags. Rival stags challenge opponents through noise (belling) and walking in parallel to size up an opponent. If neither stag backs down, a clash of antlers can occur, and stags will occasionally be injured or killed in the ensuing fight.
We encourage visitors to enjoy watching the rut but please remember to give the deer space to behave normally and naturally.
Please follow these simple guidelines and you will be able to enjoy watching and photographing them in safety:
•Keep your distance! Do not approach any deer to within closer than 50m, and stay at least 100m away from rutting deer.
•Be inconspicuous – use binoculars for close up viewing and use zoom on a camera to keep yourself well away from the rut.
•If there are a large number of people present, do not surround the deer as it may make them nervous. Always leave them an open line of retreat if they need it.
•Take extra special care not to intrude on any rutting male deer which may be fighting, roaring, displaying or otherwise defending their hinds.
•We recommend keeping all dogs well away from the rut. If you must have your dog with you, keep it on a short lead and under close control.
•If a deer starts walking parallel to you and or glancing at you out of the corner of its eye, it is a sign that it may be considering you as a threat – move away slowly and safely and leave the deer well alone. Do not shout or wave at the deer.
•If a ranger or warden asks you to move away from the deer rut this is for your safety, please comply with their request.
The rut is a seasonal spectacle to watch and hear on the moors but please remember that stags are wild animals that can reach 200kg and stand more than 1.5m tall. Whilst fuelled by testosterone during the rut their behaviour needs to be observed from a safe and respectful distance.
If brands turned off sponsoring people based on their follower count and turned on sponsoring people based on their responsible approach to the outdoors, safety and nature, would the stats for mountain rescues go down ? would there be less wildfires ? would there be less flycamping ?
Being a dick outdoors pays.
Being a dick outdoors costs.
Don’t sponsor people that are being dicks.
How do experience, knowledge, safety and responsibility become cool as fuck ?
An article on choosing and using a headtorch that i wrote for Edale Mountain Rescue Team in 2024.
Bright Ideas
Tomorrow is ‘Mountain Rescue Awareness Day’ … and the clocks are changing too. It’s about to get darker earlier. Rescue Teams in Peak District Mountain Rescue Organisation – PDMRO and across Mountain Rescue England and Wales will doubtless be called out to rescue people who had either no lighting or lighting that was inappropriate for the type and duration of activity they were doing. Eating lots of 🥕carrots🥕 is good for general eye health but carrying a torch is still a much better way to see in the dark
Here are some free words of advice for you from us so that you can see in the dark and not require our assistance …
Torch Types
They come in various shapes, sizes, ‘power’ and types. For outdoor activities on two feet there are two types – hand torches (aka a torch you hold in your hand) and a head torch (aka a torch with a band on it that fits on your head like a headband). For most general outdoor users a headtorch is better because it leaves your hands free. Most of this article will focus on headtorches.
In Mountain Rescue we spend quite a lot of time searching for casualties and lost hillwalkers – we need to be able to see (and be seen). We use headtorches and handtorches at the same time. It’s not unusual in the darker months to find us with a small outdoor shop worth of lighting options being carried by each of us – headtorch on head, handtorch in hand, spare head torch, spare batteries for all of those torches, tiny torch for map reading etc etc … as well as some serious lumen torches on charge in our support vehicle.
How Bright ?
Brightness is measured in lumen. It’s the amount of visible light that the human eye can detect. Torches vary in lumen from about 50 lm to about 1500 lm. A car headlight is about 800 lm and 1500 lm on full beam. Newer HID car lights be up to 4500 lm. You don’t need to carry a car headlight round with you. A brighter torch needs a bigger battery and a bigger battery weighs more. This ‘triangle’ of options of weight v lumen v duration sits at the core of torch buying. There may well be one torch that is ideal for most of what you do. Equally there are full on torch addicts we know that own more torches than shoes …. Brightness is altered by pressing a button on the torch or by purchasing a ‘Reactive’ torch (which senses the amount of light bouncinjg back to the torch sensor and auto adjusts the brightness and focus required). Adjustable focus (either manually or ‘Reactively’ ) is essential because the amount of lumen required to peer down a dark holloway is different to that required to read a map. Being able to use the right amount of lumen for the right job will also protect your own night vision which is important too. As an aside, wherever you are and whichever torch you’re using it’s also good to have other ways of making yourself visible so your friends, car drivers, mountain rescuers or helicopters can see you. This might be a headtorch with a rear red light on it and or outdoor clothing with reflective piping. Being visible means being easier to find.
About 250 – 500 lumens is good for hillwalking. If you’re going faster (running or cycling) you’ll need more lumen. A torch that offers multiple brightness settings is recommended.
Power
The size of the battery you need is determined by your activity and how long you’re active for. As you use more of the battery the power output reduces. This steep decline in output can be reduced by using a rechargeable in-built battery, these also perform better in the cold, are more environmentally responsible and easier to charge at home via USB cable. Just remember that you may need to carry a charged replacement for your in-built battery too. Also bear in mind whether actually charging the torch (plugging it in) is a non-starter on your trip – in that case a battery that uses a rechargeable battery pack but also accepts disposable batteries will work better. There can be a temptation to buy a torch that could light up all of the Dark Peak when you’re only walking up Win Hill…. it will exceed your requirement, cost you more, weigh a lot and burn out quickly. Read the product data, get advice from a torch geek in a good outdoor shop and be honest about what you’re using it for. And whilst you’re using it have it on the brightness setting appropriate for what you’re doing, thereby reducing battery use.
Look After It
For most of the year your torch sits in your rucksack ‘just in case’ getting covered in Haribo, bread crumbs, bashed about, sat on and thrown in the car boot … then you expect it to lumen in to action in a nano second. Look after it. Store it in a case or a dry bag if possible. Take the batteries out (but store them with it) if you need to. Give it a good check over before the Autumn nights close in. Use batteries and replacement parts from the manufacturer or reputable sources to avoid issues.
Knicker Elastic No More
There’s a story in the history of Petzl (they invented the headtorch) that in 1973 they bought some knicker elastic and started trialling ways to keep a torch balanced on a forehead with it. Must have been a sight to behold. You no longer need to ruin your best underwear as comfortable practical headtorches have been on the market for ages. Have a think about whether the band needs to go over a warm hat or a helmet. Wider headbands are comfier. Larger headtorches have a supporting strap that goes over the top of the head as well as round it. Have a try on in the shop with the batteries in. High lumen headtorches with heavy batteries may be cumbersome on smaller heads. There is also a myriad different ways that headtorches are operated from buttons to toggle switches to hand strokes in front of the lens, so again make sure these work for you – wearing your big winter gloves in the shop whilst trying torches out is a good idea too.
Beam Me Up
Most torches nowadays have Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) in them and most torches have more than one. A main LED will cast a focussed beam of light light towards your area of focus or the route ahead. Smaller LEDs, usually fitted around the sides of the main LED, provide a softer wider beam to illuminate a wider area. A torch with focussed and wide beams is the best option.
Light Discipline
Whatever you’re doing whilst out with your torch please be respectful of other walkers, runners, horse riders etc and don’t blind them with the 1300lm Mini Cooper headlight tied to your head (with knicker elastic). Reduce the output and point the beam at your feet. Night vision in humans takes about 30 minutes to fully return once it’s been ruined. If you see bright lights coming towards you it is a good tip to immediately gently close one eye (don’t screw it tightly closed) and that will retain your night vision in one eye. Wildlife can be traumatised and even miscarry due to very high lumen light shone at them. Be respectful of everything that’s out in the dark including the wildlife.
How Much ?
Like everything in the outdoors you can get the super duper brilliant just launched thingy that costs more than a monthly mortgage plan or you can shop around and get a good quality, reliable, durable torch that does what you need it to do for a sensible price. Visit a reputable outdoor shop and they will help you choose a torch that meets your needs and budget. About £40 to £80 will suffice for a good hillwalking headtorch. Think of the opportunities that the torch will provide you (star gazing, night walks etc) rather than the initial cost. A good one will easily last a decade of adventures. Not having one may well be a whole lot more costly !!!!
Black Diamomd, Petzl, Fenix, Silva and Alpkit all have comparison tables, advice articles and videos on their websites to help you choose. On the Edale MRT patch Outside and Alpkit staff can help you choose.
Mobile Phone Torches
An iPhone light is about 40-50 lumen. If you’re using your phone to navigate, photograph, speak to your Mum, check your socials, put a reel on instagram and sort pizzas from Deliveroo for when you get home chances are that the battery is exhausted and its usefulness as a torch will be limited. It isn’t a torch. It’s a phone. Buy and carry a torch.
Conclusion
A torch doesn’t have to break the bank – think of it as an investment
A torch does have to best suit the activity you do for the duration you do it for
It needs to be comfortable (summer and winter) or else you’ll not wear it
Look after it so it works when you need it to – don’t presume it’s charged
Carry a spare battery / batteries for it and a spare torch in winter
Stay safe and have a great Autum and Winter of adventures ⛑️👍
If you need Mountain Rescue in an emergency dial 999 and ask for ‘Police – Mountain Rescue’
* article on Edale MRT Facebook has lots of gnarly torch photos 😉
