The presence of a new official-looking sign in a treasured place is always unnerving. At the top of Wyming Brook it was doubly so. I have a disproportionate affection for this wooded gorge, affection born from not just from my own exploration as a teenager, but also from bringing our kids here when they were little more than toddlers.
The path beside the brook is a jumble of often-slippery boulders and tree roots twisting steeply downhill towards the Rivelin Valley below. Towering conifers dominate both sides of the stream: red cedar, eastern hemlock, Douglas fir, red pine and sitka. The kids would teeter along, pausing every so often to crane their necks upwards, glorying in this small slice of the Rockies on the western fringes of Sheffield.
