In Search of Winter (2024-2025)
wintry landscapes across the north
Hey everyone! How's it going?
Winter this year was another largely subdued affair that presented only one real winter themed photography opportunity; an all too brief 24hr period late in the season that had me frantically snapping away at some local haunts before the thaw set in.
Winters certainly aren’t what they used to be. The long frozen periods of old have given way to mild and damp conditions with all eyes turned to the phenomena of late season Sudden Stratospheric Warming for any signs of a ‘true’ winter.
And even these are disappointing both in their rarity and their longevity.
searching for snow
This year saw a single heavy overnight dumping that began to turn to sleet and thaw almost as soon as the sun rose. As I waited for the roads to become driveable (my Mini Cooper isn’t exactly 4WD), I explored the local park where I was pleasantly surprised to get one or two pleasing compositions (everything looks pleasant under a blanket of snow). I don’t think I’d ever try and sell any of them, but considering I thought I might be snowed in if the roads didn’t thaw (Suzie II’s back end was sliding all over the place), I thought it was a decent haul.
missing the target
Thankfully it only took an hour or so for the main road to thaw and straight away I headed out to Target Wood where there’s a composition requiring a heavy dumping of snow that I’ve long had my eye on.
Unsurprisingly, the B roads to Target Wood through rural Northumberland were wonderfully sketchy and surrounded by deep snow as far as the eye could see.
Sadly that heavy snow seemed intent on avoiding my destination. In my mind’s eye, I had visions of Hamsterley Forest all over again with the entire woodland floor ankle deep in snow. Instead, insulated by the hollow it sits in, Target Wood was already thawing quickly.
snow deterrent
I wasn’t going to get my photograph this year.
Undeterred, I decided to drive further west toward the escarpments of Steel Rigg and Cawfield and see what sweeping, bleak landscapes I could find jutting out from the snow.
Chasing Snow: Hadrian's Wall
It was en route though that I suddenly remembered there’s an amazing view looking south west down the North Tyne Valley just east of Chollerford. It’s a view next to the Planetrees section of Hadrian’s Wall that looks quaintly across a quintessential country stile that would perfectly suit a decent sunset… should one ever come around (they’re in short supply these days).
But as that is something else that seemingly doesn’t want to happen, I’d all but forgotten about it. Here today though the snow was still falling and considerably deeper here than just a few miles east at Target, so my long sought after composition of foreground stile and midground oak would have to be covered in snow.
I spent a good hour or so here, mostly waiting for the snow to lighten and maybe some contrast to enter the scene, but the day remained stubbornly overcast. In hindsight, I wish I’d gotten here earlier where the snow on the stile would have been unspoiled. As it is, its a composition I’m happy with but know can be improved upon the next time snow blankets the area and hopefully the sun comes out.
ice and steel
After wandering around, snapping away and grabbing as many ideas as I could, I eventually headed west again where the ever so slight increase in altitude at Steel Rigg literally had my head in the clouds and in white-out blizzard conditions.
With the wind blowing stiffly from the east and peppering my lens with snow, photography options suddenly became limited. The escarpment of Peel Crags is abrupt and dramatic - proper Bronte material - and I really wanted a photograph with a sense of bleakness to match the hostility of the landscape. Sadly, I just got blasted in the face with snow so I headed west instead. I wandered along the ridge for a while but the landscape was lost to the cloud and sections of Hadrian’s Wall disappearing into the bleak ghostly ether was the best I could come away with.
I'm happy with these shots. They’re minimal without losing their sense of how harsh conditions can be in this part of the world, beckoning the viewer to see what, if anything, lies beyond.
Elusive snow and frozen falls
Now, had I bothered to use my brain, I’d have remembered that the Pennines is a famously high range of mountains that sits on my doorstep and where snow tends to cling to a lot longer than at ground level. That penny finally dropped the day before the rains moved in where a photo of a frozen Summerhill Force popped up in my social media feed. A trip into Teesdale then saw the rolling hills and uplands still under a foot of snow or more in a stunning showcase of natural beauty. Not that it would have made a difference as, though the roads crossing the Pennines were clear, the laybys were still heavily snowed under and only a decent 4WD would have been able to park up and leave successfully. As the b-roads are narrow at the best of times, they now had standing waves of snow drifting across them so there was nowhere to pull over and grab a shot; a shame, as the low mid-afternoon sun cast some fantastic relief upon the valleys. As it was, the best I could grab was late in the afternoon after various Land Rovers throughout the day had left the laybys in a parkable condition for lil' Suzie. The light had long since disappeared but I managed to grab this shot as a reminder of how beautiful the Durham dales can be.
Onward to Summerhill Force then to grab this shot of an almost fully frozen waterfall. Its certainly a lot more frozen than a similar shot I managed to grab here the last time I visited.
Kielder's Icy Embrace
The only other notable wintry event occurred shortly after where a period of high pressure had flattened Kielder Reservoir into a sheet of glass. The absolute stillness of the water had allowed the lake shore to freeze in and around its various inlets and in doing so, trapped a long abandoned rowing boat in the ice. There was such a sense of quiet stillness and serenity in this moment that time itself felt frozen and this ended up being one of my favourite photos to date.
Reflections on a Quiet Season
All in all then a frustratingly quiet season and one I was more than happy to put behind me given the tragedy of more private matters that occured which in turn limited my ability to get out with the camera. There was one intriguing event though that occurred on New Year’s Day; a ‘soft’ aurora event which generated this diffuse crimson band across the sky to the south. Not quite a STEVE, but some kind of forward surge that remained like this in the sky for quite a while. I took this shot just as a shooting star passed directly over a setting Venus.
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