A walk in the skies! DJS walk the Edale Skyline for Blythe House Hospicecare

On 16th May a team of trekkers from DJS Research set out to conquer the Edale Skyline, all in aid of our fantastic charity partner of the year Blythe House Hospicecare and Helen's Trust. And conquer it they did! Just under 10 hours after they set out, every single member of the team crossed that invisible finish line and were blown away to hear they'd raised over £4.6k.

 

Team mate and avid explorer James Hindes reflects on a memorable day, which started out with Hope and ended on an equal high - in the pub! 

 

The pretty village of Edale in the Peak District is circled by the towering Kinder plateau, the Mam Tor ridge, Win Hill to the East and Dalehead to the West.  From Edale it is easy to track a vast skyline as you turn a full rotation and in the depths of winter the sun struggles to rise past this fortress leaving the valley in darkness until the lighter months bring respite.  It was here we had come to take on the local legend of the Edale Skyline, climbing up to and walking the entirety of the Skyline ridge, a total of 20+ miles and nearly 4,000 foot of ascent.

Blythe House Hospice, also located in the Peak District just round the corner, is our nominated charity for this year following an all staff vote.  Blythe House offer a range of services for adults and children with life limiting illness.  From research we have conducted for Blythe House and other hospices we have seen that the general public are often not aware of the sheer range of services and good that a place like this can offer a community.  We are very happy to be a supporter.

Our meeting place was Hope.  Aptly named perhaps considering we planned to take close to 30 DJS employees, many with little walking experience, across a walk of 10 hours or so, predominantly at height, in May, with the weather uncertain.  We were to be led by Jenna and Alex, with Danny Sims our Chairman here to offer encouragement in his own inimitable buoyant style.  We hoped to bring everyone back in one piece, but it was by no means guaranteed.

Our initial gathering (in the aptly named) Hope was haphazard and energetic as we arrived to don our blue Blythe House  tops ready for the day.  Preparation had been inconsistent, equipment varied, but keenness levels were undimmed.  We were very pleased to be joined by Emily from Blythe House, for whom a ten-hour hike was apparently not enough having been to CrossFit earlier that morning!  There was some anxiousness about our ageing MD Alasdair arriving late, but he appeared sure enough with a lot of hastily bought new equipment, probably from Decathlon, having joined the “pole wielders” (his words) brigade in a desperate attempt to survive through a bad back problem.

We set off across rolling hills and the sun even made an appearance to get us started. Chatting and all in blue like a brigadeof ebullient Smurfs, the peak district livestock could onlylook and stare.  We soon arrived at our first obstacle though, Win Hill and we set our backs and poles to the challenge and, despite an increasing dampening of the Smurf-like chatter, we made it to the top!  At this everyone took off their backpacks, sat and relaxed as if by some preternatural turn we were half way through the walk rather than simply 2 miles in.  Jenna had to bring us back to sense and coax us on.     

     

On we went, a long snake of blue along the ridge.  It was flatter now, easy walking and an opportunity for chat and to recover the legs from the climb.  The sun was still shining and we could make out most of the full skyline now.  Jenna kept us at a steady pace, even as we started the climb up to the Kinder Plateau.  Eventually we found a wide rocky outcrop to have our well-deserved lunch, where it promptly started to rain to remind us of the trials that lay ahead.

This next point of the walk was festooned with large rock formations that held a characteristic alien shape, like giant space bowls placed one on top of another.  These formations are said to pre-date even Danny Sims, our elderly Chairman.  They formed a bit of a maze as we proceeded, occasionally leading to unpassable bogs, that would have happily swallowed any of the smaller members of our team and we often had to backtrack.  We proceeded this eerie section with care.

We rounded the bend of the skyline on to the next section that passes Brown Knoll and talk soon turned to going for a wee.  More difficult for the ladies to do easily in wide open space due to a cruel fate of anatomy; I believe many of our group held their bladders for the whole ten hour trip.  Please do consider this if you have not yet donated.

It was around now that stuff started to get real as legs got tired and heads started to go.  Talk was primarily focused on “are we nearly there yet?” and there appeared to be some confusion about just how many peaks there really were along this flipping ridge as they seemed to be of infinite quantity.  We passed Mam Tor, where people travel for miles to come and make the 10 minute climb to take some Instagram photos then go home, and we looked at these “tourists” with sheer scorn - the battle weary “pole wielders” we now were. 

Things were looking dire so I decided it was time to share my hard won wisdom and give my grand talk about living in the moment, mindfully becoming the actual walk itself, rather than living for the end.  Because that is all we have at the end of the day, the now, the walk and our struggle that we share with others up on the ridge of life.  No-one appeared interested and asked again if this was the last peak and I said I wasn’t sure.

Our final peak was Lose Hill, but losers we were not! 

We had nearly completed the Edale Skyline and we had a table booked in the Cheshire Cheese down in Hope and Danny’s open wallet.  We tumbled down that last descent with sore feet and knees, but not a care in the world as we returned to Hope with (I think) almost everyone we started with.