Today's walk was scheduled for the annual 20 mile challenge walk over the 5 Cheshire peaks, but with a heatwave threatening temperatures in high 30s, a shorter, more sheltered walk was called for. After leaving the car park at the bottom of Tegg's Nose, after 20 minutes the highest point was reached, with 360° views, unfortunately partly obscured by mist. The structure of the top is very interesting -  well crafted in dry stone walling, but often missed in favour of the path through the quarry which contours round below. There is a series of spyholes built into the walls through each of which can be seen significant landmarks such as Shuttlingsloe, Croker Hill, Manchester Airport and so on.

From there, it was another 10 minutes to the visitor centre and the last chance to freshen up before venturing back out into the sunshine.  A nice walk leads back down to the car park, giving unusual views of Tegg's Nose itself, being shaded and interspersed with a couple of streams before it reaches the first of the four reservoirs on the walk. After following the Gritstone Trail for a while, the attempt to cross the dam of Ridgegate Reservoir was foiled by a closed footpath, necessitating backtracking and a stretch of road walking before reaching the forest itself.

The trails up to through the forest towards Shutlingsloe soon became pleasantly sheltered and breezy, but still a stiff climb. There was a stretch in the open again up to the top car park, and then another after leaving the shelter of the trees until reaching Chapel in the Forest but compensated for by good views over the Cat & Fiddle.

From the chapel to the forest there is a very rough track clearly signed at the bottom "Unsuitable for motors". But as you can see from the picture, someone had an "exhausting" time with their car on the way up!

The next bit of footpath was supposedly closed, but as the closure order was due to expire in a few days, I thought I'd explore it anyway. According to the signage, the path was impassable due to fallen trees, but on investigation, I found there were just 3 trees broken down, 2 of them very easy to circumvent on well beaten paths, and the third one was also possible by stooping down low under it. It sems this path had been closed since January but nothing has been done to clear it. Shocking!

After emerging from the forest and onto the main tracks, the shade wasn't as pleantiful as expected, but still a pleasant walk back down to finish the loop. Probably less hot on this walk than staying at home!