Buxton Powder

I like a lie in as much as the next man and with a computer next to my bed it’s all too easy to spin the monitor, drag the keyboard onto my lap and start the day scrolling through social media. However, sometimes opportunities come along that are too good to miss and with a forecast of heavy snow on Saturday night, that’s how I found myself heading out into the depths of the Peak District with Gee Milner yesterday morning.

In the UK we’re spoilt for choice when it comes to places to go and get stuck in with outdoor sports, with world renowned riding spots, surfing beaches, mountains to climb and rivers to run. But when it comes to skiing, especially in England, you’re hard pressed to find a place which you can rely on, so when the snow comes down and you get the chance for some turns, you’d better take it.

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So it’s Sunday morning and we’ve planned to drive to a great location we’ve previously scouted for a video we’ll be shooting in the next few weeks, just outside Buxton, with some steep sided ridges which had potential for some dramatic shots, given enough snow fall…

…happy with the shots, we bashed the snow out of our boots and jumped back in the car. Driving back, I remembered at the end of first year when someone asked me what it was like in the Peak District, having been at university in Sheffield for 9 months. I was a little confused, I’d been riding out into the Peaks a couple times a week for that whole time, it’d become an extension of uni life, you can walk from our halls to the start of the Peak District in 20 mins and yet they’d never been. I’ll never understand people who don’t like getting outdoors and into the countryside, but to those who do, I’d just say try and do it more often, put aside time for it, spend time planning trips you’ve always wanted to do, think up crazy ideas and go and do it whilst you’ve got time. When it snows and everyone shuts down, there’s no better time to get out into the hills, it’s not that much effort and you stand a good chance of experiencing the feeling of being in proper wilderness, an increasingly a rare thing in our country. You won’t regret it.