It didn’t feel too autumnal – warm sunshine from a mostly-clear blue sky. The air was fairly cool, but with little wind, it was a great afternoon for these hills. I would say “lonely hills”, but they weren’t lonely today. There were two coaches in the Bog car park. There were quite a few people about on the main Stiperstones ridge, past the Devil’s Chair, but far fewer on the lower lane, and the southern ridge by Nipstone and The Rock. In the woods there are toadstools galore! – including a huge colony (at least 50 specimens) of “Flying Eric” (the psychoactive mushroom more commonly, but perhaps not more appropriately, known as fly agaric – which they were until my then-young nephew misheard or misremembered…).

Sadly, the Bog Centre was packed – the coaches were still there – no tea and cake after this walk.

(We’ve done this walk before – last time we did it anticlockwise, as shown on the map. Today we walked clockwise, for the views to the south-west from the ridge)

View OS map on Streetmap http://www.streetmap.co.uk/map.srf?X=336435&Y=298026&A=Y&Z=120