Scammonden is the only spot in the register where the conditions include a motorway. Left boot, brown, sole coming away at the toe, no laces, on the dam path below the bridge, with the M62 going over the top of you the whole time. It takes some getting used to and I'm not sure I ever fully have.
Dry and breezy. I sat on the stool for the notes, and flask conditions were good, though you drink your tea to traffic noise, which changes the character of it somewhat. Two photographs come out, and one has the bridge behind the boot, which I kept for the sense of scale. It's a useful photograph. The boot looks very small in it, which is accurate.
Sole coming away at the toe, I wrote, and no laces — a boot at the end of its working life. Scammonden doesn't come up often in the register but when it does I'm always glad of the walk. The dam path is broad and honest and you're never in doubt where you are. I've been back past since and the path is unchanged, which at Scammonden is somehow reassuring — the motorway above changes by the minute and the path doesn't change at all.
Written up August 2026, from the notebook.