Me and The dawg had a wander up a very icy- and a little bit snowy Weardale today, starting at the auction mart car park at St Johns Chapel. We slithered our way up the hill to the North and along various bridleways to the very top of Middlehope Moor - at just a tad over 2000 feet.
There's a complete silence on these hills just now (in between visits from the RAF) - just one bird, I think it was a Plover going "peep" in the ever-so-slightly-bored-with-it-all way that Plovers go "peep".
Very rough going on the heathery tussocky bits and attempts to walk on hardened snow failed with knee-deep plunges at the rate of once every ten steps - but in such a random sort of way that it was just too much of a lottery. Deeper drifts on the very top of the moor worked out to be more reliable.
And then we found Puddingthorne Edge Currick. At first, I thought this was just a pile of stones, but on closer examination, I found it had a built-in stone seat and a shelter, facing down the length of Weardale and quite cosy in the sunshine. Bruno dozed off. I ate a mars bar and some flapjack and finished my green tea. Just a yard away, it was a nithering minus two with an epic wind chill, but here it was toasty. Worra grand place to sit away a long summer evening with a bottle of beer - or to watch the summer sunrise, maybe.
Eventually, we had to abandon the shelter and descend to the valley. A riverside path brought us back to the start (We actually out-aggressed a farm collie who was intending to have a chunk of Bruno. I'd watched "Dog Whisperer" the night before....
A cracking 12 sunny but perishing cold miles. Fab stuff too....
Pics include the Currick and it's view...
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