Winter memories

[azziria]

Winter caving


Pen-y-ghent, Yorkshire Dales

A bright, clear frosty day. Snow on the fells, ground frozen as hard as the limestone rock. The sky a deep and flawless blue, the still air strong and clean and sharp. From the tops you can see for miles, even as far as the dragon's teeth of the Lakeland fells, and the shining strip of Morecambe Bay.

The cave entrance blows warm air as you pass from the white world into the black.


Crummack Dale, Yorkshire Dales

Coming out, what brought such beauty now brings misery. Everything freezes. Loose strands of hair freeze to your helmet. Karabiners and maillons freeze shut, leaving you trapped in your sit harness, fumblng in the dark with fingers too numb with cold to perform such fine work. A flask of hot coffee is a lifesaver, giving you heat in your belly to stave off hypothermia, and a warm cup to cradle in thawing fingers.

Cracking the frozen oversuit and furry off your back, then the heavenly feeling of dry clothes against your skin. Huddling in the car wrapped in a down jacket, the latter not best served by muddy water dripping from thawing hair, but this is a functional garment not a fashion statement and at this particular moment you don't give a damn.

Out of the dark and the cold and into a Dales pub for food and a pint. Warmth and light, noise and music, a crackling fire. The indescribeable bliss of that first mouthful of food, that first swallow of ale.

Life has never tasted so good.