Just because you're in the Peak or the Dales doesn't mean you don't need crampons.
This week's Monday Tip is a simple, topical one – in winter, don't walk the area, walk the terrain. To which you're thinking, eh? What on earth are they talking about.
Well, there's a tendency to think that you only need micro-crampons or crampons in proper mountain areas – you know, the Highlands of Scotland, the Lakes, Snowdonia - and that somehow carrying winter gear in, say, the Peak or the Lakes is simply excessive.
But it's not true. The reality is that there are steep, exposed sections in less mountainous areas that still ice up. As an example, this past weekend, most of the broad track over Jacob's Ladder from Edale to Hayfield was covered in a sheet of hard water ice often under fresh snow.
It was, not to put too fine a point on it, lethally slippery. Remarkably, not a single walker we passed was using micro-crampons, let alone full-on crampons, though these would have been absolutely ideal for the conditions. Instead people were having to by-pass the path proper on frozen, tussocky ground, that was pretty iffy in itself.
And of course there are other areas – parts of William Cough for example or the path down the rocky promentory near Kinder Low – where the ice isn't avoidable.
In these conditions, micro-crampons like Kahtoola Microspikes or Pogu Spikes would have been ideal giving far greater security on the iced and frozen terrain – quick to put on and remove and with very little impact on overall speed.
Full crampons might be overkill on this sort of terrain, but we were astonished that so few walkers were using other, less aggressive traction devices.
A steep, iced-up slope in the Peak or Dales is as slippery as one in the Lakes. Just as walking a rocky path at 3,000 feet make essentially the same demands on your footwear as a rocky path at 500 feet. Walk the terrain, not the reputation of the area.
