Who’d have thought skiing in England could be worthwhile?
Dave hatched a plan to get out and enjoy the recent snowfall at England’s biggest lift-served ski area, Weardale in the northern Pennines.
Dave recruited Jon and I in to his crazy scheme. We all bought our Weardale ski passes (£48 each) and agreed to meet in Stanhope at 10.30am as the “resort” had asked people to arrive after 11am to allow them to get ready etc. The journey from Cumbria for me via ‘A’ roads over Hartside and on to Weardale via Alston was gonna be around two hours each way. Quite a trek!
Dave and I were on time and enjoyed a coffee in Stanhope while we waited on Jon coming up from Humberside.
We heard from Jon at 11am. He was stuck on a snowed-in ‘B’ road trying to come over to Weardale from Teesdale. He soon realised that was a mistake and committed to a long drive all the way round via Alston to the north.
Lesson: Don’t follow sat-nav when negotiating snowy winter routes!
Here’s a picture from Jon on the other side of the hill to the skiing…
All in all I got stuck on four different hills, but din’t block any roads, and got into and out of quite a few tricky situations. Apart from my route selection from Scotch Corner, I was pretty happy with my Go/No-Go decision making … an epic day out, but not in the way I’d hoped.
Jon
So Dave and I, fearful that soon the journey over would be for nought, headed on up to the ski area to check out access. Immediately after turning off the A689 at Daddry Shield the road was in full-on winter condition. Even in our 4×4 vehicles it was tricky going. When Weardale Ski Club said, “snow-tyres and/or snow-chains essential”, they meant it!
It was nearly 1pm before we got on our skis. The resort lifts were closing at 3pm.
Jon – fallen in snow-battle – gave up, had some lunch, and turned around for home at approx. 2pm. 🙁
Meanwhile Dave and I had a great few hours skiing…
There was a TV crew there, complete with big video cameras etc., which were a bit of give-away that something was afoot. Turns out they were from Tyne Tees ITV News doing a piece on skiing in the Pennines; a rarity in these days of climate change and all that. Dave and I got on the telly! Kind of. Right at the end of the video you can see us getting on the drag lift, I’m the one in the bright orange jacket and blue salopettes. If you look really closely you can spot us in a few other segments of the video. Not exactly fame-making, but a bit of fun to watch none the less…