Snowman abandoned after breakfast party

Team photo including diminutive snowman

My plans for walks are in somewhat of a mess due to deep soft snow which is lying very deeply and softly just about everywhere I’d planned to walk. So I was really pleased to receive an invitation from Brian at Nenthead to join this annual underground breakfast scoffing session. This annual tomfoolery being a bit of a get-together for the Cumbrian Mines Rescue Organisation. A mine may well smell of sausages for quite a while after one of these trips.

I squitterred the knipemobile up Weardale and over to Nenthead, passing two police signs that said the road was closed – but it seemed OK, if a bit quiet – and I arrived safely at Nenthead only to forgo the impossible drive up the steep cobbles to Chez Brian. I walked up the hill. It was very slippery.

Gilda and Brian (before picture…)

Here, Brian distributed helmets and caving suits for me and his partner, Gilda, and we loaded up packs with essential underground stuff such as stoves and gas, bacon, sausages, mushrooms, tomato ketchup and, generally stuff needed for a short but happy life of soaring cholesterol and cardiac nurses going (Tut!)

After a period of driving around on slippery snow, and a bit of kerfuffle about which hole we were going down, the Nenthead Chapel party were loaded into a land rover for a short and sobering drive over moors deep in snow to arrive a few nano-seconds later at the entrance to Smallcleuch Mine.

Gilda cooks up a storm

And we entered and paddled along, sometimes crawling, sometimes getting a bit dislocated, but finally ending up in a large cavern known as “The Small Ballroom” This is not named after tight underwear such as you might get as a present on Christmas Day, but is the smaller version of “The Ballroom” – a much bigger cavern in which, it is said, a dinner for the local masonic lodge was once held. (around 1906,,,,?)

Jamie Oliver eat your heart out.

Brian unloaded the snowman that he’d smuggled in and it was duly decorated in a festive kind of manner. – And we celebrated to season by cooking and scoffing large quantities of fried breakfast, all of which was really very nice.

Warming the snowman

And so, after a few team photos, we were lead out by an easier way than the one we came in by – which took about an hour, I suppose – it all seemed impossibly complicated to me but we finally emerged blinking into a blinking blizzard.

There is much of interest in the holes – but one of the really interesting buts we came across was the hoof marks of (presumably) the last ponies in the mine for a short section between some rails. The area had been taped off but this had not prevented some prune from walking through the marks in his wellies.

Me and Gilda full of Full English

Once out, our manic landrover chauffuer made short work of the impossible drive back to Nenthead and after a short coffee break at Brian’s, I attempted to get the car back over Killhope Cross – and failed, partly due to the car in front coming to a slithering stop. One of the keys to success is not to stop, y’see….. The headlights/windscreen thing looked like that star wars screen saver thingy…

I ended up driving around by Hexham and Corbridge, which is quite a long way home. I doubt if the car would have made it down the other side of the pass anyway. But all’s well that, well,….ends, I suppose.

But what fun.

We lit a small fire for the snowman, to keep it warm as we abandoned it to it’s dark, damp and lonely fate. Its a hard life, being a snowman.

Best laid plans…

Dawn near Crook (brrr)

Brian rang at about tea time and said “What do you think?”. Its highly likely that whenever Brian rings and says “What do you think?” he actually means “I don’t think so”

He told me that Nenthead, at the time was in the grip of a bit of a blizzard and that the roads weren’t too good. We cancelled the solstice vigil at Deadstones in favour of cosy fires and a night in front of the telly with (in my case) a warm dog.

It was probably just as well, because, in the morning the Hartside Pass and the Stainmore (A66) cross-Pennine routes had both closed due to snowfalls.

Happiness is bouncing around in the snow

We may return to Deadstones in the next few days if the weather calms down a bit.

And, so, having missed the winter solstice, I decided to witness winter solstice plus one minute (the extra length of today’s daylight0 from our nearest hill – a place in horse-grazing pastures some 800 feet above sea level just 3 kilometres from Chez Knipe and with a reasonable view of Durham’s limestone plateau over to the East.

I took the dog.

He bounced around in the snow.

Deerness Valley walk down to Crook

The dawn was barely adequate, but a bit pink and blue just a few minutes later when there were elements of beauty. A gay dawn, probably. It didn’t feel all that cold, maybe we’re getting used to it. The thermometer was showing minus four.

There were foxy footprints in the snow.

So we minced off back home for another warming breakfast. Quite good fun, really.

The King is Dead. Long Live the King.

Happy Yule, its all a bit lighter from here.

That’ll do, Bruno

At the end of a long hard day being a superdawg, Bruno just likes to relax with his favourite whale.

Hands up those who think this dog is being spoilt.

Snowy Crook

Hillwalkers tend to get over-excited about a bit of snow – and so it is with Superdawg. And its for this reason that later on this morning – after a short bout of scoffing a gradely plate of bacon and fried potatoes and, me and the dogs will be having a bit of a play in the snow. 

In the meantime, here’s a couple of pictures of the front garden of knipetowers with some snow in it, innit?

 

And a picture of Crook.

For anybody reading this who may be a bit nervous about their prospective travel in and around the area – the main roads are clear girls and boys, providing you drive on the dark bits.

There may well be more snow pics later on.

Santa Goes to Clough Head

The thing about today’s walk was that everybody on it went to Ermysteds Grammar School in Skipton in the 1960’s. Except Bruno who hasn’t actually ever been to Skipton.

And so, after doing battle with slippery roads and frozen windscreen equipment (wipers…washers….windscreen….) – which caused me to stop a few times, I turned up half an hour later than I’d wanted to do, but , more or less on time at a very small car park somewhat near Threlkeld and met The Bro and his pal Ian.

Great Knipe - Stainmore from the A66

We had the ice axes out for the first time this winter, although, whilst R Kidd had brought some spikes, neither me nor Ian had anything sharp to put on our boots. Bruno already has some fairly efficient crampons already fitted by his Maker.

So we trotted off and heaved our way up Threlkeld Knotts. There was hardly enough snow for ice axes to be honest – just a dusting, and certainly not as much as in the Pennines, which I’d photographed on one of my screen cleaning stops

Blencathra from Threlkeld Knotts

But when we climbed up the main path up Clough head, I had to beat bits of the frozen scree into boot-sized footholds with the adze – so I was glad to bring it in the end.

View West from the climb up Clough Head

We lunched on the sheltered side of the hill amongst grass feathered with hoar frost, till the clouds started to build up and then we lurched for the top, where, to be frank, it was on the chillier side of perishing (Probably somewhere around minus 6.) Bruno had his sheepskin jacket on for the first time today and was, I think, a bit puzzled by the lack of feeling when he rolled in the snow.

Clouding up – Scafell range

Rather than go and bag Great Dodd, it being two o’clock and already loosing light, we slithered off back to Threlkeld

John (R Kidd) and Ian at the Clough Head trig

A chap in a farm noticed my Santa hat and shouted that even though I was early, he’d just like to point out that there’d be something for Santa on the mantelshelf on Christmas Eve. I asked him to make sure that the fire wasn’t lit and reported that I knew, in fact, that on the naugty/nice continuum, he was at the wrong end.

So he shot me.

The last bit is a fib, actually.

The trip home was a lot less exciting although several cars on the A66 had come to grief – a couple broken down and one on top of a large cutting, actually sitting on the fence somehow. That must have been quite a thrill, I should imagine.

Short walk – 5 miles and 2000 feet – and just one more new Birkett bagged.