Fingers crossed
The awful weather of the last few weeks has kept any plans of a backpack firmly simmering away on the backburner.  Finally there is a glimmer of hope with the weather forecast for the hilly bits ‘up north’ looking pretty positive this weekend.  All going well I should hopefully get in just one more backpack before the madness that is Christmas.  Although I have done loads of winter camping before, I very rarely venture out in the tent in November and December as it is dark not long after lunch.  A bit of maths tells me that there is currently a long 16 hours between sunset and sunrise so a big fat book and loads of podcasts should keep me entertained in the dar

Kinder Scout in the Snow
On my write up of a recent Roaches walk I mentioned that I was looking forward to walking Kinder Scout in the snow this winter.  This jogged my memory of the day after boxing day in 2003 when a group of friends and myself climbed Kinder from the Snake Pass.  A great days outing up Fair Brook to Fairbrook Naze and along the northern edge to return by the Snake path.  A combination of snow on the ground and thick mist made it pretty atmospheric up there.  At least navigation was made easy by just simply following the edges.  What we had not really thought about was the really short winters day, which after the drive from Nottingham did not give us much time to play with. 

Walk?
Last June I did a three day backpack with Rae, camping at Angle tarn on the second night.  It had been a pretty miserable evening and night with low cloud and a constant drizzly rain.  Packing up the following morning and setting off towards Patterdale we bumped into Iain Crockart, his wife Lou and dog Ned.  They were walking Wainwrights Coast to Coast, with Iain taking photographic portraits of those met along the way.  Each walker was asked to hold an empty white picture frame and close their eyes whilst the photo was taken.  It was requested that the precise quiet moment be savoured and remembered. When

Lud’s Church, The Roaches and Ramshaw rocks
For a map of this route click here. I had kept a beady eye on the weather forecast throughout the previous week and unfortunately it just got worse and worse.  My planned backpack to the Howgill fells went out of the window and a bit of last minute planning had myself and Rae heading out to the Roaches for a Sunday day walk instead. With the exception of having bleary eyes it is almost a pleasure driving at 8.00am on a Sunday morning, the roads were pretty much deserted and progress to the ‘other side’ of the Peaks was swift.  The ‘other side’ of the Peaks b

A perfect dawn
As I write this I should be striding across the rounded shoulders of the Howgill fells.  Once again nature has conspired against me, with forecast storms it did not look like an ideal weekend for backpacking so has been placed on the back burner.  Luckily the bad weather has coincided with a cold which means postponing sleeping out in a tent even easier! At this time of year I look forward to those all too rare calm sunny days and frosty nights.  For me there is nothing worse than walking on a cold damp winters day to then go and spend 16 hours huddled in a tiny wind blasted tent before repeating the experience the next day.  I much prefer the crunch of frost underf