MOORLAND WINTER

Tuesday 19/01/2010. Up to a cold but bright start to the day after a good night's sleep, keen to get away at 8.30am as I want to cover as much ground as possible today. And what a grand day it is, the sun is up and the skies are clear and blue with a trace of thin white cloud mirror-like over the snow hardened moor. I have never seen these moors so lovely nor have I known them so empty of people, the North York Moors are certainly not as busy as the Lake District, but this escarpment up over Urrah Moor and Round Hill are among the most popular of the moors many footpaths and today I have them entirely to myself, save only for the ocassional scurry of a red grouse, I am the only obviously living thing on the landscape. No complaints about that. Sadly as I was on the top of the plateau I could see clouds rolling in toward me from all horizons fortelling of a coming change in conditions - soon to arrive and to rob me of these wonderful wide-open whitness & brightness views, but I had a great hour or two enjoying it and took quite a few pictures to remind of the moor in winter colours, it would be marvellous to have cross-country skis up here. From Round Hill I dropped down to Bloworth Crossing and then turned South along Rudland Rigg, by now the cloud was down and visibility shrank to 50yards or so. After passing the Cammon Stone the main track is forsaken and a rough crossing made to Bransdale where I visited (yet) another tiny dales church - St. Nicholas' perched on the hill beneath Bransdale Lodge at the head of it's lonely dale. A mile or so road walking (not a soul or vehicle seen) and again the route turns south and west, to cross the imaginatively named moor called "Botany Bay" not that there is much more than heather and rough grassland to admire here at the best of times and today the going is very hard due to the deep snow cover, unfortunately not quite frozen enough to bear my weight and I kept falling through the crust which makes for very slow progress, especially troublesome along the course of Weatherhouse Beck. I am getting lots of navigation practice as on the high ground visibility is never above 50yards and much of today I have been walking on compass bearings in low visibillity. Despite my intention and a lot of effort, I only managed a distance of 13 miles today between 8.30am and 4pm when I camped above Malkin Bower Quarries not wanting to risk carrying on over the moors without enough daylight to reach the low ground near Hawnby. A good hard day's winter walking and my camp was wonderfully comfortable (see my picture) and a brew-up banishes all concerns.