Why you must learn the language of snow

It may seem like the perfect conditions, and it is certainly pretty, but you must always be on your guard in snow

- Simon Whitehead

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Looking back, I would have usually stayed at home because of the weather but, when you have a cross-on-the-wall planner signalling a day on the hill, you have little room for manoeuvring. Living with a hectic schedule, the day before or after would have been of no use whatsoever because I was booked in elsewhere.

I now know that we got the timing spot on. The day before, the main road was closed due to snow drifting, and on the evening we left for the hill, the snow returned. A blanket of white mantled the landscape in what many perceive as the archetypal picture-perfect day’s ferreting — in reality, it is anything but.

As I turned my truck into the farm drive, my heart sank almost as quickly as my tyres. The crisp, freshly drifted snow was deep. The brightness hurt my eyes as I looked for tracks, but all I saw were sheep sporadically feeding on dropped fodder. My inner dialogue was going a million miles an hour as I was trying to think on the hoof.

I know only too well how the snow forces the rabbits to stay underground. Even faced with a ferret, if the snow is too deep, they instinctively know it would hamper any escape route so would rather take their chances against the intruder.

Stalagmites

Common sense was the order of the day. I know this parcel of land well so I headed towards the river’s edge. It cuts through a little ravine where the angular rocks shield this section of river from most of the snowfall. As I approached, it was obvious that Jack Frost had beat me to it. The river was partially frozen and the stalagmites of ice from the limestone saluted us as we walked past looking for some fresh activity and waiting for Dotty to mark a warren so I could start.