It was very cold when I left the house around 6am. The ice on my windscreen was stubborn and took some shifting, and already I was glad that I had a large bowl of warm porridge inside me! There was a lot of ice on the roads too, so I took it really steady up to the M60 and A635 to the parking spot opposite the Pennine Way sign and gate.  The ice continued to be a problem, coating the flagstones of the path and making them unusable, so treacherous were they. So my footsteps had to be chosen carefully either side of the path, or occasionally, gingerly and cautiously, on the path. This made for a slow walk to mirror the slow drive!

       

Visually, it was lovely though. Wall to wall blue sky, bright early morning sunshine, and a light coating of snow, frozen hard overnight and crusting the landscape. It took me over an hour to reach the summit at Soldier's Lump, and the slow pace continued as I set up the SOTAbeams Bandhopper 4 antenna. The flagstones were like an ice rink, but the bogs beside the path could easily be entered through the thin crust of ice!  I started again on 80m, but just 5 QSOs were made, 2 on CW and 3 on SSB. I switched to 40m, but found a contest in full swing and no chance of holding a frequency. That was fine - back to my feet and opened the next pair of links on the BH4. So now it would be the contest-free 30m band. No more SSB for the non-CW chasers unfortunately, but 30m was now the only viable option to continue. 18 QSOs were added to the log, but unusually, no S2S on this occasion.

       

After packing everything away, I called for a few minutes on 2m FM using the handheld, but there were no takers. I wasn't too sorry to be putting my aching hands away in padded gloves! I hoped that the return walk would reveal the disappearance of much of the ice with the temperature hovering just above freezing. However, it was not to be, and yet another slow and careful walk was in order.  At least the roads were by now much improved, and I was home in good time to enjoy a magnificent Sunday roast lunch prepared by Marianne. The visit of my little goddaughter made for a fantastic afternoon and the reassurance that, after all these years, I am still brilliant at hide-and-seek.