Chee Dale

Chee Dale walk - 17th March 2013

Our first visit to Chee Dale although I had read a few reports on various walking web sites we were still surprised by Chee Dale.

We parked up at Miller's Dale Station on a dry and reasonably warm day, the route we had planned was programmed into the memory map GPS  and a backup print out was stuffed in my pocket.  We walked along the Monsal trail towards Wye Dale and  did a quick detour into the quarry behind the lime kilns.

Back on the trail we took the path down by the abseiling bridge and stopped to watch a few brave soles descend.

We carried on along the narrow path next to the River Wye and it wasn't long before we hit the mud!!  Boy how we hate the mud and there seems to be an endless supply of the stuff this year but we didn't let it get us down.

Maybe we should have taken more notice of the sign at the entrance to Chee Dale, luckily we had decided to do this walk during a relatively dry spell if you don't like mud then it's probably best to do this walk during a dry summer.

We found the Dale to be full of obstacles, mud, stream beds, planks and steep descents it all added to the fun.

The walk  was very slow going and was not going to beat any speed records but the Dale is very pretty and most of the time this made up for the difficult conditions.

               

Neither of us has a head for heights and some of the steep descents and narrow paths had us wondering if we would end up in the river.

 

Thankfully there was usually a well placed log or stepping stone to help the mud situation.

We didn't spot the over hanging tree as we walked under it but were stopped by a couple of other walkers who pointed it out. They also pointed out a dipper in the river one of many that we spotted along the way.

           

Finally we reached the stepping stones at Chee Tor and thankfully they were passable, the lack of people we had seen walking in the other direction to us did have us worried that the stepping stones may be submerged and we really didn't want to walk back the way we came.

The icy water that dripped down from the Tor was not pleasant.

Once past the stepping stones the path was a lot easier going and progress was slightly quicker.

More stepping stones!

It took a staggering two hours to reach the end of Chee Dale a
distance of only 2.57 miles but we will return in the future.

  

Back on the Monsal Trail we decided to head towards Wormhill along the Pennine Bridleway.

 

We took a moment in Wormhill to look at the James Brindley memorial.

  From Wormhill we continued along the Pennine Bridleway with the intention of walking back  to Millers Dale via Monks Dale, however we bumped into two walkers we had met in Chee Dale who advised the Limestone Way may be a better option since time was getting on.

An interesting fence and Millers Dale Church from the Limestone Way.

We took the path that goes behind the Church to make our way back to Millers Dale Station.

 

When we arrived back at the car we had walked 7.25 miles in just over 5 hours.