I ventured up to the Lake District yesterday with fading hopes of finding some snow on the hills. Fading hopes being underlined as the Fell Top Assessors have started back in their roles of providing mountain weather updates and forecasts for the Lake District. They suggested a few days ago that the conditions were too mild and forecast did not look promising.

Oh well. A quick four miles (warm up) road section from Windermere to Ambleside and we are heading up to the fells. The keen south-westerly wind was bringing cool air into the mountains but there were some pockets of snow left around on the hills.

More impressive were the colours of autumn fading into the bareness of winter. Burnt coloured leaves under foot and bare trees indicate the season.

Fingers crossed the fells of northern England will get a dumping of snow in late January/ early February and some sustained cold temperatures to cause consolidation. Wishful thinking i suspect.