Cross Fell, 30 April 2016

Last week a northerly wind unexpectedly brought cold weather to England. We even saw some snow in York, although it isntantly melted away. So in search of last snow of the season we went to the North Pennines. The snow-covered hills could be seen from far away.

The red line shows our track. The "P" icon shows parking spot.

We left our car in Kirkland next to this picturesque building and went up. Here it certainly felt like spring.

But the hills were covered by snow.

Although low down everything is green, the tops are all white.

The landscape resembled Yasha's pictures from New Zealand: snow-covered tops with blossoming valleys.

Far away in the left part of the picture one can see white summits of Lake District. We are on top of North Pennines. The hills here are not very high (the highest summit, our destination Cross Fell, is ca. 890 m), but high enough for the snow not to melt away too fast.

We were following an old track which collected most snow. The hill on the right is Cross Fell.

View from Cross Fell towards Alston. Very far away, in the centre of the image, one can make out snowy hills of Dumfries and Galloway - in Scotland.

Almost there. The cairn is the top. We were surrounded by dark clouds but we got lucky, we had lots of sunshine and neither rain nor snow ever materialised.

A giant structure on the sumit with wind shelters. We have been here several times before, but never in good weather. The views from the top are great.

A radar on top of Little Dun Fell, a nearby hill. This big white ball can be seen from the main road.

Enjoying last snow of the season

Sonya is practicing jumps.

Snow outcrops on the wind shelter.

Sonya started making a snowman, but then decided to make a slope.

Last view from the top before descent.

This is the steepest slope on the way down. Sonya is taking advantage of her skis.

While we were higher up, the snow lower in the valley has all but gone. At the top of this page there is a picture of the same hill - spot the difference!

Back in the Spring. A small church in Kirkland. Many houses here are built from red sandstone, there is probably a quarry nearby.

This was an amazing day. It is hard to imagine that one can find so much snow in England so late in the season. The weather was amazing, lots of sunshine and no rain, no wind. We made good use of sunglasses and even got suntanned a bit. Unfortunately this is a rare occurance.

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