New Year's day 2010, I decided to take my new girlfriend on our first lunch "date", to the Miners Arms in Nenthead. Since I'd recently got some fairly chunky tyres on my Land Rover, I decided to take the back roads through Rookhope, Allenheads and Coalcleaugh. For those unfamiliar with these roads, the first is generally wide enough for two cars to pass and meanders gently up to a summit on the border of County Durham and Northumberland. The road then drops fairly steeply down to Allenheads. From here the road via Coalcleugh is single track and crosses a couple crests and valleys before dropping down to Nenthead.
The first road had been ploughed the day before, but the snow had blown over night into deep soft drifts. Keeping a steady speed, the Land Rover punched through these drifts quite easily. Everything went dark for a few seconds, then we popped out as the wipers struggled to clear the windscreen. At the summit, the wind had kept the route between the piled walls of snow fairly clear and we had a spectacular journey through a snow "tunnel", meeting the days snow plough coming up the hill the other side.
Enthused by the success of the first summit, we pushed on, onto the single track road out of Allenheads. This had been ploughed up the hill to the last farm, where the tractor and plough clearly lived. From here, the Land Rover was the plough.
The further we got, the more committed we were, or rather, the more committed I was; I'd got us into this and I had to get us back out of it! Past the first crest and the going got a little easier but a little more intimidating; while the snow was only a couple of feet deep and nice loose powder, it was a smooth and featureless expanse, leaving only the marker posts to guide the path across the fell. The danger here was the unknown edge of the road, hidden in the soft powder snow was a solid wall of ice where the road had previously been ploughed.
Descending into one of the valleys, my nightmares materialised as I felt the front left wheel crunch into the ice wall. Unable to back out as I was pointing downhill and unable to move forwards due to the wall of ice, this was a very worrying situation.
My legs were already soaked to the skin and boots full of snow from previous digging to make progress, but this was going to take a lot more work and there was absolutely no chance of turning back. Armed with a pick and shovel, I set to work; digging away at the snow and ice, returning to the cab to try to move, back out to dig some more. Again and again, slowly digging out underneath the Land Rover and slowly inching out of the ice and back into the powder snow. Hands and feet slowly loosing all feeling, turning to icy stumps hacking away at the snow.
Eventually we got free and by some good fortune, managed to avoid further major incident, passing only one vehicle, buried solid under the snow. A stark reminder of what could have happened to us if we'd not been so lucky. Despite my desire to keep momentum, I got out one last time and dug through to the car window to check nobody was inside.
Finally, about 4pm if I remember, we arrived at the Miners Arms to thaw out by the fire and enjoy a well earned (rather late) lunch.
We took the main road home...
Despite the slightly shaky start to our relationship, a few years later she said yes and we've been married since. The Land Rover hasn't fared so well and after stripping everything worth keeping, I scrapped the shell last year, but not before I'd found a replacement
Suffice to say, dry feet would have been one less thing to worry about!
