Locations: Kinder Scout, Derbyshire

All the specific locations in Paths of Exile are real places. The photographs in this post show some of the locations for this scene, set on Kinder Scout on the plateau crossing between the head of Grindsbrook Clough on the southern edge and Kinder Downfall on the western edge.

See the map links at the bottom of the post for topographical maps and satellite images.

First light found them in a bleak wilderness of peat. More precisely, at the bottom of a twisting channel where an icy stream had carved its way through the peat to the underlying gritstone. The whole plateau top was riven with these channels, like the cracks in a giant cowpat, and they were deep enough that even a tall man could not see over the sides.
[...]
In the distance ahead, the half-light showed two giant grey shapes standing guard on either side of the channel. Ashhere supposed they were trolls, or ancient standing stones of malevolent power, but he was too tired to care. He plodded on, and with diminishing distance and growing light the two shapes resolved into a pair of gritstone tors. Beyond these sentinels the channel made a wide bend to the left and the stream gathered volume to become an infant river running in a sandy bed. A little further on, and it threaded through a jumble of gritstone boulders and plunged over a rocky fall to vanish in a dark hollow scooped out of the plateau side.

Ashhere stared at it, uncomprehending. His first thought was that they had wandered around in a circle and come to the ravine they had climbed up in the night, but he did not remember a waterfall. And slowly he realised that the sun was rising behind him, and the blue-shadowed plains rolling away to a distant horizon were in the west.

“You have crossed Kyndyr,” said Severa’s voice, behind him.

--Paths of Exile, chapter 15




"The whole plateau top was riven with these channels..."

The Kinder Scout plateau is a more or less flat slab of gritstone overlain by a thick layer of peat. Water trickling over the surface eventually cuts channels in the peat, known locally as groughs. If you click on the 1:25,000 scale map link, you'll see the groughs shown as a network of fine blue lines covering the plateau. This is what they look like in real life.






"...deep enough that even a tall man could not see over the sides."

The man in the photograph is six feet two inches tall. To see out of the groughs you have to scramble up the near-vertical peat walls. In dry conditions, like this, the peat is liable to disintegrate under you in a cloud of choking dust, and in wet conditions (i.e. normal), it has the consistency of thick porridge.











"...the half-light showed two giant grey shapes standing guard on either side of the channel. Ashhere supposed they were trolls, or ancient standing stones of malevolent power, but he was too tired to care. He plodded on, and with diminishing distance and growing light the two shapes resolved into a pair of gritstone tors."

Kinder Gates (see the 1:25,000 map link for the location). On a beautiful day in early summer, when this photograph was taken, Kinder Gates is quite clearly a pair of gritstone tors. Looming out of half-light and mist, especially at dawn on a November morning, is quite a different matter.



"...an infant river running in a sandy bed."

The Kinder River was very low when I took this, as it was the driest summer for decades, but you get the idea.


















"....threaded through a jumble of gritstone boulders and plunged over a rocky fall to vanish in a dark hollow scooped out of the plateau side"

This is Kinder Downfall. In the very dry conditions when the photo was taken the fall was reduced to a bare trickle, though you can see the boulder field and the ravine. There's a good photo of Kinder Downfall in spate here, which will give you an idea of what it would have looked like to Ashhere.










"....the blue-shadowed plains rolling away to a distant horizon were in the west."

At the time of Ashhere's (fictional) visit in early November 605, the plains west of Kinder would obviously not have been occupied by Greater Manchester!







Map links
Topographical map available online at 1:50,000 scale and the more detailed 1:25,000 scale
Satellite image on Google Maps. You can scroll around and zoom in and out.