Arnold Lane

Blowing a hoolie with horizontal drizzle, but this weekend is the last one before Ten Tors training and navigation courses kick in. With this in mind, my mate and I set off for a mince on the north moor.

We parked at Row Tor, the wind ripping the car door from my grasp and making a mess of my neatly stacked old petrol receipts and assorted paperwork. Although the wind was rocking my car it wasn't too bad once we got going. The first section up to the junction of the ring road and Sammy Arnold's Lane was into the wind so we ended up shouting at each other in strange tongues as the wind screamed round our ears.

Into Sammy Arnold's Lane it let up a bit and we were able to fill in the gaps before the climb up to the junction with the Dinger Tor track. On up to High Willhays through the jet-propelled clag one of the deadly bottomless bogs ate one of Martin's legs to great comedy effect.

Up on High Willhays it was time for a photo shoot out the wind as the clag cleared briefly.

From there it was the superb wind-assisted descent to West Mil Tor and on to Row Tor and back to the car.

A young-ish couple of walkers in the car beside us started kitting up. Then kitting up a bit more. Then gaiters. Gloves. Then overgloves. Then a bit more kit. Hat on, hood up, a bit more kit, a rucksac with more kit in and off into the barren, hostile wilderness. Ten minutes later they'd gone about 200 yards and looked like they were about to head back. Still, they went further than the mountainbikists who didn't get as far as getting their bikes off the car before they turned round and went home......