Red Brook scramble

We were hoping Snake Pass would be open during our trip to Castleton but the snow had closed it. I was keen to revisit Red Brook so we headed out with a plan to try and get to Hayfield avoiding 'b' roads. We were a bit wrong and ended up taking nearly an hour to get there due to having to re-route a number of times as we didn't want to risk driving on any unploughed roads. The carpark was very snowy so we decided we would turn the car around and park on the road, whilst doing this we managed to get it stuck in the snow. A bit of pushing and kicking of the slush soon got us out & we were both relieved to finally get walking!

The weather had predicted a big freeze the night before but the temp hadn't dropped as low as they'd thought which meant we had a slippery slushy ascent up to Kinder Reservoir (thank goodness for walking poles!). It looked like people had been skiing down the slopes leading down to it.

Once we got to the start of the William Clough path we branched off to follow the reservoir round to pick up the River Kinder. Thankfully one other had been that way already the previous day, so although it was hard going in the deep snow we did have footprints we made it a tiny bit easier.

It took us quite some time to get to the bottom of Red Brook and we lost the footprints when they branched off towards Kinder Downfall as we took the Red Brook branch. The distant Kinder Downfall was looking impressive in it's icy coat. I wished we could go and have a look at it, but due to the depth of snow and late start we kept to our plan for the day.

The volume of snow in the brook was ridiculous and it bore no resemblance to how I remembered it. We resorted to using the axes in the turf to haul ourselves out of snow! It was a constant challenge to not get a boot submersion as a lot of the water was hidden under the snowy blanket.

The wind was really tunneling down the clough which made conditions a little unpleasant. I'd decided to wear rubber gloves over my normal gloves to try and keep them dry, but my grand plan backfired as they were too tight and were cutting off my circulation. Although I had spare pairs of gloves I decided to give Steve's Dachsteins a go which were a little hard to move in, but so toasty!

As we got higher we finally got out of the deeper snow to some short ice pitches which Steve climbed and rigged a rope for me. It was good to get the crampons on & fun to have a go with an axe. They were short and over all too quickly. Just before we finished we found a fantastic lunch spot under an overhanging boulder which was perfect given that it was 2pm and we were starving!

By the time we got onto the Plateau the wind had thankfully dropped a little, although there was still some spin drift blowing around. It was very quiet on the top which was unexpected. I was hoping that we would have a well trodden snow flattened path but it wasn't to be, more deep snow to contend with! Although I've been up Kinder quite a few times I've never had a good view of the Downfall due to mist. On this occasion though the cloud which had been hanging around all day finally lifted and we were treated to beautiful views of the icy falls.

We  had hoped to make it over to Far Nether Red Brook to descend the scramble there & return to William Clough but it was clear we were out of time to do this. We were going to head down prior to William Clough but the weather was so good we decided to continue on to follow the Clough Path down. As we reached the bottom we met a Dad and his son on a night hike cooking up there dinner by the river, I felt quite envious of their stove and sledge! We rejoined our initial route up to return to the car which felt like quite a slog with tired legs - the thought of pizza and chips spurred us on though!