The behaviour of the yellow-coated knee-length leather-booted man, who appears on The Cloud summit just after dawn every morning had gained my interest. I had ascertained that his descent route was the standard one down to Cloudside parking area, but noted that his car was always parked by the crossroads just north of the summit. He always appeared from that direction, so what was his ascent route?
The other day, I noticed a stile and National Trust sign right by that crossroads, and a vaguely trodden path heading steeply and muddily uphill from it. I had to find out for myself.
This morning, Jimmy, Liam and I had some time to kill before taxiing the youth of Macclesfield to the football match, so we decided to follow in the footsteps of the yellow coat and the leather boots, and see how one could emerge onto the rocky summit of The Cloud from down below.
Whether Mr Yellow Coat undertakes his regime at the weekends I have no idea, but his car was not there when we arrived at the crossroads between Bosley and Timbersbrook (SJ902640)- not really surprising as we approach midday. We skipped across the road and climbed the stile, enthused by the prospect of a completely new and completely different ascent of a very familiar hill.
We began with a haul up a steep and slippery grassy bank, ducking under low-flying tree branches as we did. As the ground levelled off slightly, and the trees cleared, we could see that this was a very different way to ascend The Cloud. Immediately ahead of us was a vertical tower of rock, reaching high above our heads, more like an approach of Ingleborough G/NP-005 from Chapel-le-Dale. Either side of us were steep boulder fields, more like the experience of the final climb on Great Gable G/LD-005. Behind us were the vast and far-reaching views across Cheshire, the viaduct, Jodrell Bank and the hills of the Peak District. After only a few minutes, my car was just a visible silver speck some distance below our feet.
The route now followed a narrow stone stairway, increasingly steep, and increasingly deeply cut into the hillside. The trench was taller than Liam at times. At the top of this section appeared to be an ambiguous T-junction. We took an educated (and ultimately correct) guess at “left”, and contoured around the rocks followed the indistinct track. We were soon proven right when the route curled round and began to ascend steeply once again. This became rather scrambly, and our hands were frequently down on the grass and rocks as we hauled ourselves up several large pulls. The rock formations suddenly looked more familar and we realised we were one pull from the summit escarpment of The Cloud. Jimmy and Liam started to competitively jockey for position ready for a final sprint to the trig point.
This was a very satisfying and interesting ascent. It took about 15-20 minutes longer than usual, with an extra 250 feet or so of vertical ascent. It is probably the most interesting route I have tried yet.
On the summit, we huddled behind the trig point to avoid the worst of the strong north-westerly wind, and used the Yaesu VX-7R to make the activation. Despite the limited working conditions, we made contacts from all over the North West and Midlands in a half-hour stay on summit.
The descent route was the standard one down to the Cloudside parking area, but then was necessarily extended by walking down Tunstall Road back to the crossroads. A pleasing 75 minutes work overall, and now it was back to Macc to pick up the other two boys that were coming to the football with us.
Many thanks to all the stations that worked us.
Tom M1EYP
