I finally feel I am catching up with my blog posts. At last. Here is one from Ringing Roger back in June. Ringing Roger for me was a location I really wanted to capture for my book. I had a vision, that it would be in snow at sunrise just as the sun rose from behind lighting up Grindslow Knoll in the distance a pink colour as the first light hit it.

This was a envisioned shot for many years, but the year I really had the drive to capture it, we had no snow the whole winter. So instead, I decided to do it in June. I admit, both sunset and sunrise wouldn’t be great as the sun would have rising in the North East and setting in the North West, but alas I had to try to get the location in the book.

To maximize my chances of catching some light and because sunrise was awfully early I decided to wild camp. It had been many years since I last walked this part and couldn’t really remember what lay at the top so I took the risk and went up. On arriving at the top of Ringing Roger it was quite apparent that the ground wasn’t really suitable for tents, or anywhere near the vicinity. Ooops.

I looked around but eventually resigned myself to a spot near the summit. I kid you not, after moving one large rock, the pitch on the sandy ground was no bigger than the tent footprint. Alas we were pitched.

It turned out that the sunset up at Ringing Roger was to be the best. The thick cloud seemingly broke to the north allowing the sun to break through casting a warm glow over on the great ridge in the distance. Waking up for sunrise the next morning seemed promising as it was clear skies above and cloud below, almost cloud inversion like but as the sun rose so did the cloud and it ended up being almost zero visibility. The last straw were the midges, lots and lots of them which left me irritated for over a week covered in 100’s of bites.

The walk down was a slog in the murk, but I was happy to have got the below two images which in the end after all the trials and tribulations turned out very well in my opinion.

You can find a route walk here if you wish to go up

Ringing Roger