Recce Three – Torside to Standedge

So after the success of the recce of the last bit of the first bit of the Spine Race, the next day’s mission was to recce the middle bit of the first bit. I wasn’t really expecting much from today as I couldn’t really remember much about it. As it turned out this was probably due to the fact it was around this part that I became extremely unsure that I would even complete the first leg of the race, never mind the five after! As I soon found, it wasn’t because this bit was boring…

Today’s train journey was via Manchester Piccadilly, which meant it was very expensive but there was an opportunity to get coffee and a breakfast roll. Today’s leg was the shortest in distance but had the most ascent (only just). It also had a nice easy start with a reasonably flat three mile jog along the Longdendale Trail, part of the Transpennine Trail, before we joined the Pennine Way.

For some reason I remembered the run across the dam between the Rhodeswood and Torside reservoir and the following gradual incline along Torside Reservoir, however after the left turn at Crowden everything was worryingly unfamiliar.

This was disappointing as I discovered that had I seen the sign on the way to Laddow Rocks, I would have had a lot more idea what I was letting myself in for…

Fortunately the main path was fairly obvious. Steep, rocky and hard but obvious.

Eventually we ran out of up an moved on to ‘horizontal but on a bit of a cliff’ however the view back down the valley was spectacular.

After we reached Laddow Rocks, the path became flatter with a steep slope down to the right. These kind of paths are quite safe and runnable but my fear of falling means that I’m always a little nervous – perhaps that’s why I had apparently blanked this section from my memory.

The Pennine Way drops into the valley of Crowden Great Brook – which obviously leads to a return to boginess. In actual fact the path wasn’t too bad and was paved along much of its length. The bigger challenge was fording all the small streams feeding into the brook, especially when this happened…

For my future refence, go to the left and it is possible to jump across. It may even be possible to jump across from the path but the margin for error was no where near big enough to tempt me to try.

The path gradually climbed back up to Black Hill, or Soldier’s Lump – it appears to have both names on the map. The view from the top of the hill is largely urban but I was particularly intrigued by a large tower/chimney/other sticky-up thing almost on the horizon. I have no idea what it is so if anyone could enlighten me I’d be very grateful.

The run across Wessenden Head Moor was a bit dull if I’m honest. the path is slabbed and so at least it was easy running. A stop for a chat with a man with two Tibetan Path Finder dogs provided some respite from the tedium (I may have the dog breed not quite correct but there was something about path finding – or possibly following).

One last stream crossing at Dean Clough followed by a short climb up took us off Wessenden Head Moor to the A635.

A short road section took us towards Wessenden Head Reservoir. Someone had left a picture frame by the side of the path so naturally I had to try and get artistic with it.

The path took us past Wessenden Reservoir and a short sharp descent to the end of Blakely Reservoir followed by the inevitable short sharp ascent to Blakeley Clough.

The path across Black Moss was variable in quality, a few random sections were paved but much was just a bit annoying. Finally we passed the last reservoir of the day (Black Moss Reservoir) and joined the Standedge Trail at the point we joined the Pennine Way yesterday.

Having run this section again I can kind of see why I didn’t recollect much about the second half – once you start the climb to Black Hill the remaining section was reasonably pleasant but not especially memorable. However how I had forgotten the climb to Laddow Rocks and the subsequent ridge edge run I have no idea.

So, two days of recceing successfully completed – what would tomorrow bring?