Snow Chance! - Snake Pass part 1

Our plan today was to head up Snake Pass to the Pennine Way and along up to Bleaklow. Driving along snake pass the weather was treacherous, snow was smashing into the windscreen, the wind was blowing the side of the car, and visibility was terrible.

We opted not to stop near the Pennine Way, as the last thing we wanted to be doing on a freezing Sunday would be digging the car out of a foot of snow. We continued down the road until we found a better place to park.

The car park we found was opposite Snake Woodland, so we zipped up our jackets, put on our gloves and headed into the wood.

The wood provided us with some fantastic scenes, trees lightly powdered with snow, the rushing river splashing over the shiny rocks, and the brown and yellow of the trees and mud. We went a mile and a half into the wood before emerging at the other side to join the road we had driven down an hour ago.

Crossing the road, we decided to take a little rest, brush the snow and rain off our clothes, wrap up and tuck in for the walk ahead. This is when my glove flew off a wall and down a very snowy riverbank. Obviously, I was to retrieve it, but it was no easy task. I must have slipped over 4 or 5 times, with Jen stood at the top of the bank, wincing and pleading for me to come back. With the soaking glove in hand, I climbed, on my knees, back up to the road, ready to press on.

Unfortunately, the wind and snow made the walk into the Moors almost impossible, so we decided to walk along the road, back to the car, to warm up, have our lunch and drive back to the Pennine Way.

We stopped at the footpath, and covered our faces with scarves, and attempted our walk for a final time. The elements defeated us, and we surrendered. The wind made it almost impossible to breath, the snow was slippy and it was absolutely freezing!

We fully intend to come back soon to attempt the walk again. However today's adventure turned out to be a driving adventure as we explored the Snake Pass, Castleton and Winnats Pass from the warmth of our car. On foot we managed 3.50 miles, with no real change in altitude. It still counts towards our 1000 miles in 2019. 987 to go!

Thankfully, we got some lovely pictures of Snake Woodland.