The Outdoor Fox

Amazing winter still here! Four of us gathered on thursday 14th in our new favourite cafe! [opposite the Stone Boat]! The decision was made to start from Shepheards Lodge. This meant we where soon in snow. We contoured round into the Pot. Playing about on patches of snow! The way in was steep and the constant break through into soft snow tireing! A stop was made in the bowels of the Pot! This was short because of the cold but necessary because of the exertions! Food and hot drinks where downed quickly. Then we started to climb up the back of the Pot. Dougie leading the way like a young pup which he certainly is not! He aimed to our left which brought us out at the steepest part of the Pot. The snow was soft but mostly stiff enough to take our kicked steps though when you broke through it was hard work dragging your legs out. Meg bound up and down between us making full use of her four paws with their built in crampons! It was a long pull to the top but what met us when we got there! The pics just about doing it justice. I don’t remeber seeing so much snow and frozen shapes in the Mournes. We followed the height down between the 2 pots but made the mistake of hitting the forest at the recent tree felling thinking this would-be quickest way out. What a mistake! Branches everywhere, ruts from tracked machines, lots of water from snow melt! Awful! After a strenuous day this was the most unpleasant half hour-in the hills for a decade! It was a great relief to eventually reached the car, all of us covered in mud, tired but buzzing from a great day, Thankfully I ended up in Gambles for food and wine and a complete relax! Star treatment from them as usual! Click here or on the image below to view the gallery of our day in the pot.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 26th, 2010 at 5:25 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.