One day in March 2010 I traversed from the top of the Yad Moss tow to cross the road at the cattle grid on the Cumbria/Durham border. From there I followed the track to the Tees, and on to the top of Cross Fell.
The temperatures had been low enough to slow the transformation to spring snow. So I descended in a series of graceless snowploughs on breakable crust. I was on my own, so a fall might have been quite serious. I came back to a gully opposite the car park, which required some energetic climbing.
I'm not a particularly good skier downhill, and my skills with a map pale beside Heather's. However, I'm very good uphill, and I'm good at reading terrain if I can see it. The interesting thing about the North Pennines plateau is how much snow there is to drift around in the wind. That's why if it stays cold enough, and the wind is right, Yad Moss gets refreshed with powder. Those conditions also cause 8 foot drifts at Hartside.
