Outdoor Discoveries

A white Easter?

From the various weather forecasts that I have been perusing, it looks as if the weather for this Easter is going to be a wintry affair. One thing that does seem strange is that 2008 might get a white Easter while 2007 was bereft of a white Christmas. If we do get the predicted weather, it will be a marked contrast to last year when I enjoyed several trots along the Pennine Way: a clag-bound affair on Holy Thursday, a windswept one in the sunshine on Easter Sunday and a dampened one on the day after. The previous year saw me experience a number of seasons while on the way up and down Goatfell on Arran; the nearest I came to winter conditions was a hail showered as I neared the summit and snow underfoot thereabouts too.

While the idea of wintry showers might not appeal to fair weather types and I can vouch for the fact that they can irritate even if you are equipped to deal with them, the prospect of a sunlit landscape coated in white more than makes up for any annoyance. From a walking perspective, snow isn’t so bad so long as visibility doesn’t deteriorate to a level where your ability to navigate is compromised; frozen water can be seem to be "drier" water, an impression seared into my memory by a trek up and over Ribblesdale’s Whernside one Saturday in February a few years ago.

All in all, I could be tempted out of doors by the forecast and I do seem to detect a spot more intelligence with the Met Office’s weather warnings; I won’t be doing anything silly but painting the place red at the least hint of problematical weather is daft too. No concrete plans exist yet so it’ll be a case of seeing what happens…