Neither of us had a chance to get pies yesterday so we had a couple of slices of pizza leftover from last night and set off walking at 9.30. We crossed the stream and started a steady climb pretty much straight away. After about half an hour we reached the fast flowing stream again and crossed it. The path got steeper now and was made up of small, smooth rocks and it was clear they were going to be slippy coming back down! It was not raining at this point and was actually quite warm, after another half hour we reached a fork in the path and we took the right side towards Mickledore. Up to this point we were surrounded by bus loads of walkers but they all took the left path. We had a 10 minute sit down and a cuppa and put on the water proofs as it was starting to rain and getting very cold considering it was June. The path climbed into the crags and became very steep on very wet scree. Finally to reach the summit of Mickledore we had a rough scramble. At the top was a Mountain Rescue store where I stopped for a minute to catch my breath and then set off for the final summit.

The last 25 minutes was then a walk over large rocks, being very careful where to place your feet because one foot wrong could easily break an ankle. We reached the summit of the highest mountain in England at exactly noon so 2.5 hours ascent was exactly on target. We stopped for a quick photo (above) and then set off back down. This time we set off on the path that would take us back to the other junction of the fork. It seemed like a less direct route but without the climb, it was certainly busier. As most of the path was made up of the slippy stones it was quite a slow descent for me. We stopped for a cuppa and some bait for around 25 minutes, far too long when we come to do the Three Peaks proper. It rained most of the way back down so the water proofs stayed on all the way to the car park.

We got back to the car park at 2.50 exactly so 5 hours 20 minutes not the fastest but bearing in mind the weather and 2 stops, not bad.

With the Three Peaks in 3 weeks still lots of training to do but heading in the right direction.