Brass Monkeys on Hart Fell

7.2 miles 685m ascent 3h 37m

Blue skies….Hart Fell beckoned. The old Edinburgh road was passable and we parked at the community hut near Newton. Once past the first kissing gate we found what was in store for us; 6 inch deep snow.

Before us we could see Well Rig, our first challenge and walking in the snow was tough. Ball-breaking was the phrase that kept passing through my mind, but in retrospect that is a little over dramatic. But I certainly warmed up pretty smartish and wished I had trained by stepping through old tyres like you see them doing in military training in films.

After the fifth kissing gate we turned left and started up steeper slopes making our way onto Well Rig with many false horizons. You know the drill. You look up and see the top, thinking that you’ll press on and rest when you get there. But once you are there, it turns out you are not quite there yet. Good practice at kicking steps in the snow anyway.

Once up onto the wee ridge of Well Rig we could see the long walk up to Arthur’s seat and Hart Fell beyond it. There were some footprints to follow at first but they turned off part way up. So from about halfway up we were in virgin snow and it did became a little less deep towards the top.

The wind picked up here and was bitterly cold. Despite pulling down my woolly hat and tightening my hood, there was a small part of my face exposed to the wind and this became numb. I was forced to walk with my hand sheltering my face. James spilt some of his water while having a drink and it froze where it landed on his rucksack. It was COLD.

The going was slow, and though James was much faster than me it took us 2h 20m to get to the top. The views were fantastic. The Moffat hills (Swatte Fell, Carrifran Gans, Whitehope Heights, White Comb etc) were all clothed in white. The Lowther Hills were very clear and even Criffel and Screel were visible. The cumbrian hills were just visible on the horizon.

The fences at the summit were covered in snow as you will see in the gallery and though these look like wooden fences covered in snow, they are in fact wire fences.

The return journey, downhill, seemed considerably easier and was quite a bit faster.

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