mountain climbing by mistake

we decided one saturday to go exploring in the peak district with jess and mike. after going the very long way round we rolled up at dovedale. adam had been there as a child and remembered pretty scenery and some stepping stones across the river. so we parked up and set off. we strolled along the river, eating ice creams and watching the wildlife. the path to the river from the car was slightly downhill, so we knew we had to go back up at some point.
we found the stepping stones and i took photos while adam risked life and limb taking liv across....

...and then came back to carry ty across, who was hard to carry while he twisted and turned looking at the ducks.

adam had plonked liv in a tree for safe keeping while he came back for ty, under the supervision of jess and mike. jess, as you see, has her camera out too. for the alternative perspective of our day see her blog at britishcowgirl.livejournal.com.

adam tried to leave ty in the tree too, but liv didn't like sharing her spot.

she was much happier on her own. the dress sense is all her own idea - hat and gloves on a sunny day - but turned out to be very well planned with the strong winds on the mountain.
you can see some of the stepping stones in the middle of this picture. we decided to take the path leading to the bottom of the picture that started up the hill thinking we would go slightly up and round the back of it to get back to the car. however, it never went round, it just kept going up....and up.....

..and up! great scenery, and by the time i realised we were heading straight for the top, it seemed more sensible than going back down and round the front and up to the car. so we kept going. it was hard work for me. but adz skipped along happily, carrying one wriggling child and guiding the other (who, at 5, totally put me to shame)

they had to keep stopping to wait for me, so i used photography as an excuse to pause so i didn't have a heart attack.

we made it to the top of the mountain in relatively good time (relatively good for having a wheezing, lumbering half dead me there)

the little dots are the cars, which we now still had to get back to. at this point we discovered there was no path down the front, and we really should go back the way we came and round the front. we were too stubborn to do that and tyler was shaking with the cold in the strong winds, so we went down the front anyway, mostly on our bottoms!

a family shot on top of cloud thorpe.

again adam carried tyler, so his balance was more off and he spent the most time sliding on his bum to the obvious detriment of his trousers. (nice bum though!)

finally back at the car, i took a shot of where we had just come from, and at this point i had to admit it really was not a mountain, just a medium sized hill.

well, it FELT like a mountain, thats all i'm saying. we were all proud of ourselves, especially liv who had a great time and never complained once.