Snowy night run

Another Tuesday night, another Glossopdale Harriers club night run. Five of us were out plus our four legged friend Elsa - complete with her own reflective collar. Our route took us from the Leisure Centre, through Manor Park, up to Swineshaw Reservoir and up through the forest. What I hadn't figure on was bumping into a tractor with a herd of cows following it down the track. Rather oddly the farmer shut the gate and kept the cows in the field, rather than taking them further down - this meant they could just wander back up the hill from where he'd fetched them. Not to worry, they did delay us slightly but we only had to do a slight detour to avoid us having to push through the herd. They did seem rather attracted to our lights and followed us up the hill a little, but thankfully lost interest before we emerged higher up in the field.

The tractor

Climbing steadily the obvious paths in the daytime sort-of-eluded us a little. There are many little trods up onto Cock Hill, and we eventually found a good one that took us straight to the trig point.

At Cock Hill trig point - from the left: Zoe, Elsa the dog, Becky, Alison, Steve

Glossop way below our vantage point

Ladies Captain Alison modelling the club long sleeved vest at Cock Hill trig

The grass and trods were wonderfully sprinkled with snow and the freezing temperature meant underfoot was rather crunchy. Everything glistened beautifully in our head torches. 

Our route took us from the trig point higher up to Glossop Low cabin, and a little further to the spot height at 481m so we could look towards Holme Moss mast. The night was so clear it felt like the mast was much closer than it is. Earlier in the run we'd seen Winter Hill mast way over to the north of Manchester, and from our elevated position we could make out both very clearly. 

50% of our feet, Elsa included

The run off Cock Hill was lovely, easy underfoot with good grip from my Mudclaw 300s. With thicker socks than I'd worn in the morning my feet were lovely and warm.