Overnight temperatures had dropped precipitously. I woked a little after midnight and answered a call of nature, admiring the lights of distant villages. On returning to my sleeping bag I decided to blow up the airbed I was carrying to lift me off the ground, as it was feeling distinctly cold. This ensured I stayed warm until morning, snuggled in the thick, warm folds of my soft sleeping bag. I soon cooled down as I left the tent, putting my feet in boots stiffened by the cold. Last night there were only a few scraps of ice, but this morning rivers of grey, translucent ice crossed the path. Packing and dismantling the tent was painful. My hands felt as if they were moving in ice cold water. I was wearing thin liner gloves as I could not manage the more delicate operations such as tying my laces or removing pegs in my proper gloves. All my hand movements were clumsy, my hands struggling to move properly in the cold.
Finally packed, things improved, walking warmed up my feet, my hands, now fully gloved, heated up more slowly, it took a while to stop them feeling ice cold, but my exercising them, clenching and unclenching, helped a little. The clouds, bubbling across the horizon with pink undersides also distracted me. On the path through heathers and reeds, the puddles had frozen hard. The mud had solidified with the subzero temperatures, preserving in detail the tread patterns of hikers' boots and the pawprints of their dogs.
As I walked I sprung grouse who flapped into the air muttering complaints. Top Withens was one of today's sights. A ruin in a location said to have inspired Emily Brontë's book, "Wuthering Heights". It was certainly a bleak place today.
I was now entering that part of the Pennine Way with multiple reservoirs suppling the great metropolises of the north with clean water. Although I passed a couple today, my main interest was "May's Shop", an Aladdin's cave of many treasures well known to Pennine Way afficionados. I prepared myself for it being closed on a winter Monday but was very happy to find it open. I lunched on a pork pie, a buttered scone and two mugs of coffee. The coffee was welcome as the water in my bottle had been freezing. So cold was the water that I could only managed a few sips before the chilling pain at the back of my throat forced me to stop, so the warm coffee was a means of ensuring I stayed hydrated.
After May's the next landmark was the deep Calder Valley, a highway used by road, rail and canal. The walk down the steep valley side was enjoyable, a change from bleak moors. The twisting descent on cobbled paths and steps went by houses so close you could look on their rooms.
Unfortunately it meant a steep climb through birch trees up the other side of the valley to reach Stoodley Pike on the moors above. Stoodley Pike is a prominent stone monument originally built to commemorate the defeat of Napoleon.
The easterly breeze was bittingly cold, small blobs of ice were forming on the windblown grass, so on reaching a hollowed out area with a modicum of shelter I decided to make camp despite it being only 4 pm.
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