Winter on the Moors

PeterPHWS

PeterPHWS

Joined
Dec 31, 2005
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We have had a fair old time of it up here with the snow .... for early winter there have been some record snow falls .... on Friday we had a break from the weather and the sun was out so I thought I would go for a walk up onto the Moors from my house and take a few photo's ....

Here are a couple of older pic's showing where I live ....

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The fall of snow then was mild in comparison to what we have now .... here are a couple of pic's showing the current drifts .... they make getting out of the house a bit of a chore "shovelling wise" ....

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Managed to get my front door to a "useable" level ....

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and just twenty yards down the farm track looking back towards the house you can see how deep the snow fall has been ....

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The drifts are right up to the tops of the walls ....

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My nearest neighbour is the farmer who thankfully has a snow blower on a tractor and can keep the main tracks clear .... he is in the photo above bringing feed for the sheep .... but as you climb higher going up a bridleway called "Doctor's Gate" which takes you onto "Bleaklow" Mountain ( aptly named as it is all bleak Moorland ) the conditions are getting a lot worse .... here is the "High Barn" used to offer protection for the sheep when they are lambing in the spring ....

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The snow here has drifted right up to the roof .... infact getting up here would have needed snow shoes were it not for the tracks created by using the snow blower so that feed can be brought up for the sheep ....

Climbing higher here is a picture of the farm valley taken from an old concrete machine gun position which was built back in the early part of WWII after Dunkirk when we faced the liklihood of an invasion ....

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Huge commanding views of the valley .... there are a number of these scattered over the southern Pennines .... designed to use the Mountains as a natural "high ground" battle line .... this is one of my favourite view points ....
I often come up here to do some long range practise doing a bit of foxing .... or to take a few hares for "the pot" .... it is a great place to learn wind reading .... if you can take a hare or a fox here at 1000 yards .... doing F Class shooting on Stickledown at Bisley is comparatively "easy" ....:D

The snow is a great time to learn what is happening up on the Moors .... even a novice tracker can get to grips with what is around and about .... in this part of Peak District we have the only "pocket" of Artic Hares outside of Scotland and Wales .... their fur turns completely white in winter and they make a hard target to pick up on .... but their tracks are "plenty" around the valley ....

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You can see their tracks making the most of the drifting snow ....

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They are in the above pic using the drift as an easy way to cross over the walls moving around the fields for easy feeding .... pinching a bit here and there of the feed put out for the sheep .... one thing to note with Hares is that they very rarely run down hill .... their long back legs send them tumbling .... so if you want to stalk them it is best to gain height and approach them coming down the hill .... and what is true for us is true for foxes .... up on the top I was following a set of tracks and sure enough I saw that a fox had picked up on the scent and followed them for a while .... it gave up though as in this sort of deep snow a fox has'nt got a chance catching a hare .... the Hare can stay on top of the deep drifts and the fox cannot if it has to run .... so now the foxes are often seen walking along the tops of the dry stone walls busy trying to find voles who will be using the walls for shelter and like the foxes as an easy way to move round for feeding.

On a side topic .... going "off track" following the Hares soon brought home to me how dangerous it is up in the hills in these conditions .... even for someone like me who knows the ground well .... there are deep drifts which occur in small depressions .... often where little streams are beginning up on the Moors and are coming down the hill to join the main streams in the valleys .... these drifts right now are well over waist height and dropping into them can easily twist your knees and if you are unlucky and fall badly you will have a broken leg .... here is an example of what I mean ....

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Small Hawthorn trees are the only type of tree you will see up here on the Moors and even then only on the sides of the hills and not on the tops .... they can manage to grow where everything else finds it to wet and windy and the soil to peaty .... but the tend to grow in the small depressions I mentioned .... I went down to check this one as I wondered how badly frozen the wood would be and had a bit of a suprise as I dropped down into a really deep drift and whilst I was half expecting it and simply relaxed and sat back into the snow going with the fall .... it is easy to see how trying to struggle to regain your balance would result in an injury .... it is quite tiring pulling your legs out of the deep drifts "as is" .... but doing so panicing and trying to re-gain your balance would easily tear a few ligaments ....

My reason for checking out the tree was to see how frozen the wood was .... if you are lost or caught out in a blizzard up here Hawthorn trees are your only potential "tinder" for a fire and I was curious to see how the tree was fairing .... that one was frozen solid and they tend to be scarce high up on the hillside .... but if you were in a bad way and coming down with hypothermia a fire from a Hawthorn tree might well be a life saver .... both from warmth and as a signal .... and thankfully Hawthorn wood burns slow and hot .... a tree like that in the pic above would last you the night if the fire was kept small .... but to get at the wood and get a fire going is a good example of why I prefer "a large knife" over a " Bushcrafter and folding saw" combo .... I know from trying both that if you had to saw up a Hawthorn which is frozen and it is a narly hard wood at the best of times ..... to get to the dry inner wood for tinder you would be sweating buckets by the time the task was done and as the sweat cooled you would be in a race against time to get the fire going before hypothermia set in if the weather was like it is now .... whereas if you carry a large chopping knife in your rucksack you can take down the tree and have a fire going much quicker and without getting soaked in sweat ....

I did'nt take down the one in the pic above as those on high ground are few and worth cherishing .... but further down the valley on my land there are a good few of them and I decided when I got down to them to use one and get a fire going for a welcome brew .... I had with me my Nuclear TTKZ and I soon had a fire going using this to take down one of the limbs on a fairly large tree which would grow back .... and despite the weather conditions I managed to get it going using shavings and structured the fire to dry off the thicker tinder above it and once that was going I could burn off branches and make a welcome cup of hot soup ....

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All in all a great day out :thumbup::)
 
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You live in a beautiful place! I love that front door. Good shooting ground too...

We've had about 5-6 inches of snow on our hill (near Rossendale) but the Sun's melted a lot of it today. My wife and I spent the morning watching the whole valley giving off clouds of vapour as the Sun warmed it up. A big change from the -12 Celsius (10 F for the non-metric) we had two days ago.

As tough as the snow can make life (we were snowed in for four days last year and lost electricity for a couple) I wouldn't want a winter without it. Nothing beats a good single malt and cigar by a campfire on a snowy hillside with a good view!

Thanks for posting the pictures.
 
foxyrick said:
You live in a beautiful place! I love that front door. Good shooting ground too...

We've had about 5-6 inches of snow on our hill (near Rossendale) but the Sun's melted a lot of it today. My wife and I spent the morning watching the whole valley giving off clouds of vapour as the Sun warmed it up. A big change from the -12 Celsius (10 F for the non-metric) we had two days ago.

As tough as the snow can make life (we were snowed in for four days last year and lost electricity for a couple) I wouldn't want a winter without it. Nothing beats a good single malt and cigar by a campfire on a snowy hillside with a good view!

Thanks for posting the pictures.
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Rossendale is'nt too far from me and is a lovely place ..... I sometimes get up to Whalley as I have a friend up there who runs an outdoor gear shop and we go walking round there .... and I quite agree that a whisky and cigar with a stunning snowy view is hard to beat :thumbup:
 
PeterPHWS said:
Rossendale is'nt too far from me and is a lovely place ..... I sometimes get up to Whalley as I have a friend up there who runs an outdoor gear shop and we go walking round there .... and I quite agree that a whisky and cigar with a stunning snowy view is hard to beat :thumbup:
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That wouldn't be Whalley Warm & Dry would it? We got out Paramo gear from there.
 
PeterPHWS said:
On a side topic .... going "off track" following the Hares soon brought home to me how dangerous it is up in the hills in these conditions .... even for someone like me who knows the ground well .... there are deep drifts which occur in small depressions .... often where little streams are beginning up on the Moors and are coming down the hill to join the main streams in the valleys .... these drifts right now are well over waist height and dropping into them can easily twist your knees and if you are unlucky and fall badly you will have a broken leg .... here is an example of what I mean ....
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PeterPHWS, awesome shots of your "back yard". I have been lucky enough to see some of these stone fences in person in Ireland. It is quite mind boggling to think how many stones there are in them & the time it took to build all of them. Along with the drifts you mentioned in the above photo, I would bet that snow blindness on a sunny day would be just as hazardous as well. Such beautiful countryside, but danger lurking even in beauty.
Thank you for taking us on your trip & sharing some of your lifestyle.
Be safe.
p.s.: Great avatar by the way . . :)
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Peter, you live in a truly beautiful place! Thanks for sharing those photos. Normally by this time of year we have that much snow on the ground but all I see is the bare grass. As difficult as it is to shovel snow and as crazy as this sounds, I miss it and hope we get a white Christmas here.
 
Hi PeterPHWS -

Thank you for the pictures!

I enjoyed looking at your pictures and reading your story. :cool:

best regards -

mqqn
 
Thanks for the kind comments everyone .... we are due a thaw soon so I will be able to get out further .... but "snow on the hills" does make for a great "view" .... :thumbup:
 
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