Had a nice little run today - my first since 14 November! We've had three large dumps of snow - Friday, Tuesday and today, but I needed to get out.
Thought I'd go up to my local summit and back, normally a straightforward outing involving 6.6 miles and 1300' ascent.
Made may uphill to the edge of town on paths with people digging their cars out and happy groups of children sledging. Once I got out of town much higher up there was little evidence of people having gone this way before and coming out onto the top lane there were only one or two sets of prints, none of them recent. This top lane only goes to two farms and unlike when there's been deep snow in other winters recently there were no vehicle tracks at all. The farmers hadn't got out? This should have alerted me to what lay ahead.
Coming off this lane onto a track which only led to some farm outbuildings there were no vehicle tracks or footprints since the first snow fell on Friday. I was on virgin snow about ankle deep here. Through a kissing gate and then I was on the open hillside where things started getting serious.
Toiling uphill I was in snow knee deep. Visibility was poor, about 50m, and there was no trace of the path at all - everywhere a blanket of snow with the topmost reeds and heather covered in ice sticking out above it. It was disorientating.
