Grey with a hint of purple.

Everything's gone grey with a hint of purple. Which is nice. I'd forgotten how much I enjoy riding into night. Watching the lying sun sinking behind Peak hills. A cat that looks like a badger in the half light, but is still a cat. A dim pheasant playing verge roulette. A field full of long-lashed alpacca. Or were they vicuña? Back lanes littered with a criss-cross matrix of twigs. An owl spread out wide and swooping ahead in the gloom.  A hint of somewhere in the middle chill in the air. And an understated shadow of winter just over the horizon.

The Things You Find...

At the top of Chunal no less. I have no idea why anyone would decide that the junction of the Monks Road and Chunal would be an appropriate place to site an advert for a Barbie pink, Playboy Hummer, but there it was - with a rainbow behind it no less. So if you need transport to the works Christmas do, here's the answer...

Meanwhile, in a slightly different, parallel universe, had a spectacular perfect arctic day on Kinder with my mate Dave and Zak, the crazed springer spaniel. Just lovely, bring back the snow, please.

 

 

Orange bikes look great in snow...

They do - one Ragley, one snowy Peak District, the tail-end of a snuck holiday mid-week ride, lights, camera, action-ish.

 

 

And then it got dark.

That's better...

I love the way snow glitters like tiny stars in your lights when you're hooning down Cut Gate in the blackness, picking your way along a Scalextric-clean ribbon of grit-dusted snow through the jumble of rocks. The sound of ice cracking under your wheels and that funny round, hollow noise that big, tubeless tyres make on frozen ground. The funny looks when everyone else is heading home and you're off and up onto the moors. The quiet nods of recognition from other people who 'get it' - fell runners, bikers, walkers. And I love the views of distant towns burning bright in the dark. And ears burned by the cold. And the funny people who won't go out because it's 'too cold'. I guess I kind of like winter.

Just a bit further...

 

Holme Moss, supposedly closed, but hey, how dangerous can sheep be in these conditions? Is the warning sign really necessary? Think it through though, sheep in snow = instant camo. They could be on you before you know it. Not a place to linger, so home the long way. Tuesday's plan realised.

Thermostat borked.

My internal thermostat is screwed. I no longer know whether it's cold. Or warm. Or scorchio. It all feels the bloody same. The other day I was solo night-riding above Hayfield thinking just how mild and pleasant and spring like it all was, when I realised that the glittery rain-drops reflecting my helmet light were, in fact, snow flakes. Oh yes, it really was just like spring. In Antarctica. Or maybe Siberia...

And this morning, when I woke up to find two inches or so of the white stuff loafing around outside in a 'What, me? Didn't you know I was coming' display of nonchalant insolence, I just kind of shrugged internally, swapped slicks for knobblies and Mog for Pace and hit the trails instead of the roads.

Of course, six weeks ago, I'd have been consumed with childish glee - 'Look, snow!!!! Wow!!!' - and indeed my mate, Dave, was horribly enthusiastic in a way that suggested he has the memory of a goldfish (fortunately he doesn't have internet access, or at least he has no idea that this blog exists, hopefully) - but now, I don't care. Snow is just a crap annoyance that looks vaguely scenic and made me crash when my front wheel disappeared into a powder-filled slot, bastard stuff.

It all made me think of Mick Fowler, the infamously 'normal' extreme mountaineer who combines ridiculously hard climbing trips with a 9 to 5 spent working as a tax man. I was fortunate enough to meet Mick once, at the launch of the TNF store in Manchester I think, and asked him why he didn't just become a full-time climber. Because, he said, slotting climbing trips in around his normal existence made climbing extraordinary, different, vivid, escapist. He didn't want to be a professional climber because he reckoned it would spoil it for him.

That's the danger of making your passion, your job. Or - desperately tries to square circle - living in a world where snow is no longer the exception, but the rule. Suddenly the extraordinary is merely ordinary. And that's rubbish. When your escape is your norm, where do you escape to?

So it would be nice if it stopped snowing now.

Tightrope walking on dubious snow...

Ace day in the Lakes on Monday testing kit and clothing, or at least that's my story and I'm sticking to it. My mate Chris just bought a Mazda Bongo with camper van conversion, so we headed up on Sunday evening, parked up, pubbed up and went to sleep.

It'd be nice to say that we got up bright and early and embraced an alpine start so we could watch the sun rise as we reached the summit, but the truth is that we woke up quite late, pottered about gently with porridge and coffee, geared up in a desultory, random sort of way and finally set off up Helvellyn.

Snow conditions lower down were frankly crap. Wet, unconsolidated cack of variable depth, but things got better as we got higher and hit the start of Striding Edge proper. Weird conditions, soft and slidey except along a foot-wide trail of tramped-down, cramponed snow, mostly along the crest of the ridge. Mostly straightforward, but some interesting, floaty, high-wire walking with steep drops on both sides.

Crampons feeling quite alien after not having used them for over a year, so full-on relaxed concentration to avoid catching a point and going arse over tit into the abyss. At which point, according to Chris, Type One Fun, would have become Type Two and significantly less fun. Fortunately it all stayed as Type One despite the iffy snow.

Down the final scrambly down-climb - two moves, snow firm fortunately - then a scamper up and onto the plateau. Lunch at the summit shelter, banter shared with two men hiding under a blokka bag, then a gentle meander back down via Dollywagon Pike and a frozen Grizedale Tarn because I wanted to recce the bridleway.

Rrrright... It looks like a toboggan run, god only knows what's underneath... And just occasionally the clouds would lift to reveal seductive glimpses of tiger-bread mountain flanks, then just as suddenly, the curtains would be drawn across hiding it all again.

Back down in Patterdale and drowned by memories of the last time I was there. In the summer. When it was different.

Cracking day. And good company. I like mountains.

Ghostly white.

I like snow, it kind of adds epicness to everything. Cover Catstycam with a blanket of the white stuff and it suddenly looks like the Matterhorn, which is nice. And cheaper than flying out to Zermatt. So snow saves you money as well.

Had a proper white weekend up under Rivington Pike with friends. Biking Saturday on deceptively grippy snow. Food, wine, conversation on Saturday night, then a relaxed stroll in the snow on Sunday. All quite lovely.

Miniature epic drive to get home to a white-blanketed Glossop and, well, it would have been rude not to go running. Rubber-studded soles gripping nicely on crisp pavements, running past warm, glowing houses and best of all, a ghostly white, snow-lit detour up the bottom section of Doctor's Gate, glistening in the moonlight.

Then today, stuck some Bonty Mud Xs on the Voodoo Wanga singlespeed and went for a gentle roll along by the Longdendale reservoirs, except that the snow meant it wasn't very gentle at all. But it was beautiful.

Making the most of it before it turns into brownish slush and I migrate south for Christmas.

Motivation 2: Rivers of mud...

Riding trails that were streams. On memory. Up to the cranks. Up to the knees. In water. Watching erosion in action as the torrent carved living channels through the grit and piled soil against water-bars.

Every puddle a memory test and a leap of faith. Hub deep? Face deep? Weight back with gritted teeth. The endless pause before. the. bottom. of. the puddle and solidity and relief.

Ridiculous comedy laughing, bubbling up like water and washing away a residue of reluctance. And all the better for knowing how many people would be wrapped up warm and dry inside.

A perfect Sunday.