Hard Walk

Much of the time it comes over the top of gaiters or Wellington boots so it's hard work moving forward. The 272 bus driver kindly put me down at the car park where there are tracks. Piper House bus stop the other day had been so deep that I thought it best avoided. Some big strong vehicles had been in the car park (4x4 - the man's solution!), and tracks also went down to the composters, so walking is not bad that far. Presumably the farmer has been down to his sheep and highland cattle. But then the double tracks become single, evidence of just a walker or two and the mad MTBers who are driven by an obsession to take their bikes everywhere (reliable informants have told me they sleep with them). A snow barricade is probably also theirs.

If the grazier got down this far there's no evidence for it. The gates won't open and there's no sign that livestock have gathered around the gate which is what would happen if they saw fodder coming. I had to climb the gate - a lot easier than walking in 2 feet of snow. How they manage for water I don't know; highland cattle will probably eat snow but I'm less sure about sheep. There are small patches of bare ground where they've pushed their snouts through the snow to get to some pretty rough dead-looking grass. A bale ot two of hay would go down well, I'm sure. Of course no sign of deer. Not imprisoned without rations in the enclosure like these others they will be foraging down near the farms to the east. Good luck to them and let's hope they meet one of the kinder farmers.

Beyond the far gate and up over Blacka Hill is slow progress.

This is certainly where you need tennis rackets strapped to your boots. Occasionally there are human footprints to walk in until they annoyingly, and mysteriously, stop just when you've begun to rely on them.

Then at the Hollow a decent path emerges of the kind made by a group taking it in turns to lead
- but then that too loses its identity just as I'm beginning to wonder if I'll make it to the bus stop in time. Here on the notorious bend of the A625 the stop is on the south side for both directions. The time-honoured tradition of drivers every few months knocking chunks of wall, the stop itself and sometimes themselves over the precipice seems to be dying out.