Hi,

Is there an alternative, better, route back to hayfield from the top of Jacobs Ladder rather than just head west down the bridle path to coldwell clough? Or is that still the route of choice?

You can get on the bw half way down and go over to Kinder reservoir – bit more interesting. If it’s quiet you can go over the fp to brown knoll from the top, swing round Mt famine for some better options.
The fp is paving slabs over boggy ground, though, so potential for loads of argy bargy with walkers if it’s busy – got poked in the chest with a trekking pole once on this route!

Cheers.

The FP option looks interesting, but this is going to be on a sunday so probably a bit too confrontational. Might try to reservoir option.

Reservoir is a good run if it’s dry, but if it’s wet stick to oaken clough.

Cheers Julian.

V wet and windy this weekend. Ask on twitter.com/kofthep for updates on local conditions

Reservoir is a good run if it’s dry, but if it’s wet stick to oaken clough.

You can pick up the singletrack footpath that leads down to that b’way – obvious stile above path on the right at the bottom of rocky descent, but the bridleway itself is proper, boggy, sloggy erodable stuff at this time of year, particularly the first bit.

The one plus of the direct descent is that you can then kick up and ride the campsite descent into Hayfield, then 20 Trees whereas the logical continuation from Kinder Res is up the lung-busting cobbles.

Oh, for wider reference, there’s a lot of quite brutal water damage at the moment – the Middle Moor / Shooting Cabin descent has some interesting new chasms and the campsite descent is getting quite good, mind the off camber corner as it opens out. Covered in loose rubble atm.

@badlyWiredDog – what / where is 20 trees? Often end my route Into hayfield on the campsite descent, is there more?

It’s the climb up onto Middle Moor/Shooting Cabin, the one off Hayfield Road. Gets it’s name from the clump of tree part way up, there are actually 19 of them, but hey, who’s counting? There is more on the campsite side of the world, but alternative rather than continuation and not technically legit.

That KoftheP is a really useful chap