Peaty pools look very nice when you don’t have to walk through them

If there’s a single photograph that could sum up the Pennine Way, it’s probably this one.

This is Black Hill and people used to describe Black Hill as a morass. They probably still do, but these days it has stone slabs over it which, frankly, I was very grateful for as the thought of walking through the bogs up here doesn’t seem very appealing.

We didn’t do the Pennine Way all in one go, nor in correct order, but if you did do this would be day 2 between Crowden and Diggle and we walked it in Spring 2008.

Because our parents live not that far from Crowden, we’d stayed at Catherine’s parents house the night and they joined us for part of the next day. They were heading off to Nepal a few weeks later so decided they’d get some rucksack carrying practise by carrying our packs. As it happened, when they got to Nepal they swiftly hired a sherpa!

You can find all my Pennine Way photos in the Photos section