 Poster: A snowHead
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On Saturday, the alarm went off at 6:30 and we forced ourselves out of bed and ready for another day of fun. We arrived at B's only 20 minutes late and were soon on our way towards Woodhead. We'd agreed to meet JT in the Crowden car park at 9:30 ready for a little tour of Black Hill. Of course, when we arrived, the entrance to the car park was impassable so we headed a little further up the road to the one in a quarry that the lorries often use. Fortunately, this had been ploughed and gritted. We phoned JT to advise him of the change only to find him stuck in snow in a car park at Langsett on the other side of Woodhead. Fortunately, he had a shovel and his snow socks with him and he soon joined us. The delay gave me time to come up with another plan so we soon set off for the Trans Pennine Trail. Here we met another skier, on Nordic gear, who was heading, on his own, to Marsden - respect!
From the road, the first section was quite steep and a bit much for JT on his fishscales.
Then we continued East along, what must be, the old road. It proved to be very heavy going with lots of drifts to negotiate. Still, we must have provided some amusement to the passing traffic.
We crossed back over the new road and then down to the old Salter's Brook Bridge which was almost completely filled in with snow. We had some fun at Mrs A's expense as she tried to straight line it and came to grief. And then again as JT tried to side-step his way through a gate.
A little further on lay a pretty little copse. On a previous occasion Mrs A and I had skied past the copse to Lady Cross and thence over Howden Moor. Today instead, we bore left to head back towards the new road.
We crossed the road (where two policemen in a 4x4 looked at us with some bemusement) and followed the B-road for a short way then bore left again along another track. There were several hares about which were easy to spot in their non-white coats but too fast to photograph. They ran off a long way and left plenty of tracks.
We crossed the line of the old Woodhead railway tunnel. There are several air shafts and one of the workmens' huts provided some shelter from the wind while we had lunch. Then came a rising traverse towards our intended destination of the un-named trig point at 499m. The wind was getting strong now but, through a little planning, was mostly from behind us. Here's B and JT with the air-shafts behind whilst the traffic heading east had temporarily ground to a halt.
Our destination lay almost in line with the mast at Holm Moss so that gave us something to aim at in this bland featureless landscape.
Here we are on the summit complete with trig point by Henry Moore with the mast behind. You can't see the wind but it was certainly cold and we didn't linger.
The descent was fairly level to begin with but at least we were wind assisted. JT was struggling on his skinny skis as he kept sinking into the soft snow.
He made better progress as the ground got steeper.
But the soft fluffy stuff proved difficult for some!
The gradient kept coming and going, as did the snow conditions, but it was generally a pleasant ride back towards the road.
Then, suddenly, a steep pitch opened up that dropped down right next to the road. It just had to be done and the beeps from the cars coming up the road only added to the excitement. Anyone heading east over Woodhead in the next few days is sure to see our - erm - 'handywork'.
Another fine day out and JT must have liked it 'cos he asked if we were doing it again next weekend. That was before hid slipped and slithered over Woodhead again on his way back to Lincoln.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Way cool. If I had touring gear I'd be up for some of that but all my gear is alpine 
There's a track just to the right of the map displayed called the snow road.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Lovely stuff.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Fabulous report.
I was right there with you.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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There should have been some white (mountain) hares up there too. (Strictly "blue".) They look very silly when they have their white, winter, coats on and there is no snow...
The blue hare is the UK's native hare - the brown hare having been introduced by the Romans and having driven the blue hare out of England so now it survives only in Scotland - save for that little patch of the Pennines where they were reintroduced by the Victorians and a population of around 1,000 survives.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
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James the Last. Thanks, that's interesting to know.
In 2005 we saw many white - sorry blue - hares when skiing over on Howden Moor.
Read a report of that trip about half way down this:
http://www.vibram.org.uk/boot200604.htm
(still no photos of hares - but there is one of my ass at the top of the homepage!)
This time they were definitely a mottled greyish brown.
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superb
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