I have met the winter, and it is mine.

The above blog entry subject is an adjusted quote from Oliver Hazard Perry. It's basically how I feel about snow camping. With a fluffy jacket, several layers of fleece, a hot water bottle, a dry tent, wool socks, a mummy sleeping bag, mittens, hot herbal tea, and a number of relative strangers to cuddle between, winter camping is mine! 

The climbing club people all met up Friday afternoon, and by 9pm, our van crunched into the icy gravel of the Peak District camp site. Yes, it was a little ominous that there was blowing, swirling snow on the highway, but it all settled into 2.5 feet deep drifts. We donned our "head torches" and set up tents on the powder next to a river. I was assured that the snow would act as an insulating layer between me and the ground. 

The next morning we packed up our lunches and "kit" (British for an individual's gear) and crash pads and rope, and we hiked up to the crags though knee-deep powder. Nothing to make you feel out of shape like sweating in -2c degree weather. We definitely needed snowshoes. 

The view was spectacular! It is a white ocean gridded with stone wall fences and skeleton trees. The powder was so deep that even humans' hiking, driving, living couldn't disrupt its perfect whiteness

I'd love to lie and said I did 10 climbs, each more difficult than the one before. But I didn't. I did two climbs, and that's all. And there's not any photographic evidence because my photographer friend was belaying me! But this is where we climbed, and you can see the ropes as proof of our climbing prowess. 

And this is me sitting on a bouldering crash pad drinking tea. 

And this is me at least wearing a harness and drinking more tea while I take pics of someone else climbing. 

There are two problems with cold weather climbing: toes and fingers. I have to go down to bare feet to wear my climbing shoes, and my fingers freeze numb in seconds of holding onto icy rock. Isabella and I walked around on top of the face to warm up and look adorable, but as far as climbing goes, it was more of a camping/hiking trip than a get-sore-from-lots-of-climbing trip. 

Saturday night we went to a pub and were all warm and almost asleep on the way back to camp at a mere 11pm. Sunday the bus slid off the tread paths and got stuck in a drift on the side of the the road, so we used tent stakes and pots to dig out, and then my dream car old Land Rover came and pulled us out. People are so friendly here! But that took hours, so we ate and started back to uni. without bouldering. On the way home we had a lovely and very appropriate sing-along to Disney's Frozen, and the other students took turns making the van a moving broadcast of the top 40 pop chart. And I'm over here with an cinnamon Americano and a highlighter like "readers gonna read."

 

It was a hilarious weekend all in all. I'm ok with winter camping! Yeah, beach camping is still my preference, but as long as I have people to sleep between (or an electric blanket) and a nearly infinite amount of hot peppermint tea, it's too pretty to stay inside.