Simply stunning

After the snow we've had over the past few weeks, and the subsequent thaws, Monday night proved to be the best for dumping lovely stuff all over - I woke up to the loveliest winter wonderland I've seen in years. The downside? I was due to be in Ashton for an appointment and then in to work where I was training staff before getting some management training for myself.

Getting dressed I shoved on my walking boots again - they've been worn for weeks on end now - and wrapped up warm, plodded downstairs, opened the door to find lovely deep powdery snow. Stepping out of my door I sunk to my knees in it and knew it'd be a great day regardless of what happens. As there's a severe lack of grit in my borough (Tameside) only the really important main roads were gritted - I live on one such road and there was not an ounce of salt, grit or any other substance on the roads except for the snow. Cars were stupidly trying to drive through it, lorries were just abouts coping with the depth but not with the braking capabilities required. I knew no buses would be running as First always suspend services early, an Arriva driver who was walking home told me his fleet had been suspended, so I knew it was only a matter of time before Stagecoach did the same. I checked the travel info on my phone and it was saying expect severe delays and disruption - blatantly obvious given the conditions. By the time I walked across the road to the bus stop, this had changed to all bus services calling in any fleet that had managed to get out of the depot.

Mere moments later a colleague rang to say don't bother coming into work as the boss was snowed in (she lives halfway up a steep hill in Oldham) and other staff couldn't get in. One down, one to go. Phoned regarding my appointment and, again, was told to not bother.

Play day for me then!

After getting changed I set off on a mission. Armed with my camera and prepared for deep, deep snow I retraced my footsteps from New years Eve knowing that it'd be hard going due to the snow frequently covering my knees (I'm over 6ft tall, with long legs, so it gives you an idea of how deep it was).

I made my down to Berry Brow (a valley with one very steep side and one slightly less steep side) and found car, after abandoned car on the road side. Further down the hill and men in flouro jackets with tractors and vans were towing cars, vans and even people up the hill in the direction I came from. A couple of buses were stuck in the valley bottom awaiting their own tow trucks with a line of haphazardly dumped vehicles smeared all over the hillside ahead of them.

I plodded on relishing the effort I was putting in to get where I wanted to be, knowing it to be an amazing workout. Arriving at the fishing pond where I'd been on NYE, I was grinning from ear to ear to see it totally snow covered and every tree looking like it should be on a Christmas card. Simply stunning!

The little green sign in the photo is usually standing proud about 2 maybe 3ft above the water line, as you can see it's almost covered.

Wading through the magical scenery, drinking in the breathtaking views I arrived at the field by Medlock Vale farm. The proud trees in the centre of the field looked awesome and the lane to the side was just so inviting. Walking down it I crossed the river and saw that my island had disappeared under the snow and the river was frozen over in many places - it's not a particularly slow flowing river either, so proof that it was very cold and we'd have an extreme amount of snow.

The valleys were amazing to walk through, with me working ever harder to get through the snow, steps were invisible so it's lucky I know the area and where they are. Upon reaching the Oldham Way at the top of the valley I was finally seeing other people - although only a few of them. They'd made their way to the golf course to sledge the hills and slide on the frozen river, with some stupidly deciding to sledge down the sheer drop to my side.

I made my way to Daisy Nook to find the cafe only just opening up after the owner had taken forever to get there - he'd been told a road was closed when it wasn't. I carried on past the cafe and scrambled up past the old lock flights to reach Sammy's Basin which I knew would be frozen over and then further over to Crime Lake (which doesn't always freeze over). Past the Basin and I heard ducks having a bit of a strop. Not really surprising considering their habitat had totally frozen over leaving only a patch of water 12ft across for them all to swim in and feed. All too soon I saw some huge webbed footprints in the snow on the ice-covered water, followed them and found a very handsome huge swan having the biggest paddy I've ever seen a creature have and dishing out dirty looks to everyone he saw. He was really slamming his feet down hard and giving the odd honk. Poor thing.

Over at Crime Lake the scene was just something we rarely get here with deep snow smothering everything, leaving trees looking like they've cotton wool draped all over them and the snow on the water easily reaching 3 or 4 foot deep.

The only colour in this white and brown world was that of Crime Farm on the far bank perched on the hillside, surveying it's surroundings.

Heading back from the lake I noticed the swan had changed direction, followed his footprints and found him bullying a mallard to get out of the 'bird bath' so he could get in. The mallard didn't give much resistance - can't blame him really - and he plodded off to his harem of females.

My journey home was done by road as by now the trails I'd come along were swarming with kids and big kids alike all wanting to take advantage of the freak snow and play.

Arriving home to the seriously deep stuff I decided I wasn't yet tired enough, so set about building a snowman (instead of a penguin like I did before Christmas). After building him, I made him an igloo/snow dome type thing.

Before I knew it I'd clocked up a stonking 8 hrs of playing in the snow. I hadn't really thought I'd been out in the snow that long. Looking at my camera it's a different story though as I have over 200 photos to mull over. All depicting the best snowy day I've had in years!

Stats:

Miles - approximately 20

New Years Eve

A little late, but here it is ->

Seeing as I had absolutely no intentions of going out and getting ratted in the evening (or any part of the day really) I went for a nice crisp walk on New Years Eve day.

I set off from mine wading through a slushy gloopy mess to get from my door to the road before sploshing my way down to the lovely Bay Horse and the beginnings of the climb up to where the true walk would start.

Once at the start of the off road route I slid my way along the access road (Vale Lane) to the entrance for the fish pond, looking gorgeous in the hazy sunshine and frosty ice on parts of it, before heading properly off road to the muddy pathways where I did my coppicing in November, along those and through a field to bring me out by Medlock Vale Farm and it's gloriously muddy tracks churned up by the frequent manoeuvres of the funky tractor.

These tracks led to a bridge over the Medlock Valley with steep slopes down to the river side, which I slid my way down, and made my way to one of the little islands in the river (the water is only ankle deep to get here).

After a scramble back up the slope my route took me across the undulations in the area, crossing the river again on a rather precarious little bridge (no rails, just the ice for company and the babbling river below) before hauling ass up a steep hillside to get to the Oldham Way at the top of one side of the valley with Brookdale Golf Course on the opposite side, sheer drops to the left of me and a barbed wire fence for the farm close to my right.

Splodging my way along here I was often met with very deep and thick mud patches, too big to jump across and no way around. The only answer was to walk through it. Admittedly it was quite good fun, so I didn't really mind. Over and across a few stiles, then it got even muddier as I had to squelch my way across a field then another stile, then along the Jericho Trail to Stannybrook where I tried not to slide down the hill towards Medlock Hall Farm and scrambled my way back up another hillside along the trail to the start of Riversvale Drive, turned off to head to Sammy's Basin then off again to splodge through the wildflower meadow (it is allowed), past more areas where I hacked down trees, down the hill, through the river to clean my boots a little (it didn't really work for the boots, but it did on the gaiters) and hauled ass up the other side of the valley to the cafe.

After chowing down on a bacon butty and steaming tea I hauled ass home to a very welcome hot bath and to flop on the sofa with a big grin on my face!

Stats -

Miles: approx 8

Lots of fun had.

Windy walk

Seeing as I'm going out of my tree with not riding this week I opted for a walk today regardless of the gales and the threat of torrential rain.

I chose a portion of a walk I've done frequently that I knew wouldn't be too hilly or too muddy in the current crap climatic conditions.

I set off from mine with a beanie on as despite it being mild out the gales were supposed to make it much colder. What the weather forecasters failed to note was that the wind was actually rather warm, so before long the beanie was off and replaced with my baseball cap to shelter my eyes from airborne crud. By the time I'd passed Millstream Animal Shelter my waterproof jacket was getting unzipped as I was already beginning to get a sweat on.

Before long I'd reached the steepest point of my walk with a brief 14-20% section to enter Woodhouses. Directly opposite some gorgeous cottages is a road that for several years I thought just led to some expensive looking houses off the main road. It wasn't until a year or so ago that I actually paid attention whilst walking past and saw the weathered finger post sign letting the world know that it led to Medlock Vale and was part of the Oldham Way.

I headed down this road which led past some stunning houses before reaching an old cobbled section (maybe a century old?) that led steeply down to a gorgeous farm in the valley with a stunning vista of woodland all around it. Once past the farm and along a muddy track (with some deep tractor ruts in it) and I was at my desired location of the bridge over the Medlock itself. My aim of coming here was to see exactly how much the river had risen with the influx of rain we've had recently. Further downstream I'd seen the river so deep that there wasn't much of the archway left to be seen in the road bridge - pretty sure the river had risen at least 4 or 5ft. Up here the river was lapping over the banks and had breached them at one point. Luckily the banks of the river here are actually 10ft or so below the pathways - kind of a valley in a valley. However there didn't seem any imminent danger of it breaching fully.

Once I'd had a rest I set off back through the muddy tracks to the waymarked entrance of a field and tramped my way through until I reached Vale Lane again which brought me alongside fishing ponds and back out onto the main road, where I pootled back down the hill to get onto Edge Lane again.

From here I climbed back up the hill in another direction to the level crossing and the start of the Clayton Vale circular route (a portion of the Vale I'd not walked along for many many years) alongside the train tracks until the Culcheth Lane entrance and the trail led down into the valley here where again the river was so swollen and fast flowing that even the ducks had huge problems. Crossing the old bridge and climbing back out of the valley I startled a bunny - my startle saved it's little fuzzy life though as soon a Sparrowhawk came swooping about looking for lunch and he'd have been the meal if he hadn't have hopped away into the undergrowth.

Now I'm at my mom's place and my knee is swollen internally (horrid squishy feeling) and kinda dead, so I'm glad it was only a short walk and it's something more I can tell Doc when I see him.

Stats - www.bikehike.co.uk/mapview.php?id=26362

Temp: 11C with a real feel of 11C. Winds 29mph S.

Miles: 4.2

Climbed: 296ft

A Wandering We Go

I set off for a 'recovery' walk and left Bardsley to walk up the disused Hollinwood branch canal to Park Bridge and have a wander around the ruins of the Fairbottom Bobs, Bright Shop and the Steaming Mill. After a lovely wander round (I was the only person about at the time) I came back along Park Bridge Rd to Bardsley, crossed the road and entered Daisy Nook to amble along the canal bank to a very, very dry boating pond by Sammy's Basin and along to Crime Lake. Along this portion of the canal is a lot of lovely waterfowl families who seemed quite happy to let me take photos of them.

I climbed out of the valley opposite Crime View House and crossed the motorway to enter the delightful Woodhouses, where I continued through the village, past the cricket pitch and towards Rose Cottage and it's beautiful cottage neighbours.

After spotting a public footpath sign leading down a lane by the side of Christmas Cottage, I descended down a lovely old cobbled lane (quite steep) and past Medlock Vale Farm (very pretty) entering more into open countryside and away from the urban sprawl. After a peaceful rest stop by a weir on the Medlock with only the rabbits for company, I set off through the fields following a tiny footpath on the Oldham Way which took me past a largish pond I didn't even know existed which isn't put on many of the a-z publications. It seems this pond belongs to an angling club although it is on the Oldham Way, so maybe this is why it isn't publicised.

All too soon I was leaving Medlock Vale to cross Berry Brow and re-enter the Vale on the Manchester side of the border rather than the Oldham Side. Now following the Circular Walk route I made my way up the steep valley side to the top where I again left the Vale and entered urban sprawl to head home.

Stats - view route

Cooler, cloudy

Miles: 6.15

Climbed: 190ft

Max gradient: 4%

Time taken: 3:00