WHY DO SNOWY DAYS stand out in the memory? What separates the hills adorned in their winter plumage from the rest of the year? There is the excitement and freshness of a landscape transformed, made more abstract, beautiful or challenging by the conditions. Under deep snow, it might be the sheer difference of it all, the inherent oddness and mystery of exploring a bizarre and minimalist moonscape, a dreamworld made real. Elements change states – water to snow, snow to ice – and those elements change the environment. They change us, too.
What stands out in the stories below is this transformative power. On the best of days, we are transported from one state to another, lifted from darkness to light – sometimes quite literally out of the gloom and into dazzling sunshine. That experience of piercing winter light punctuates the short days and long months after the clocks go back. Winter weather is never certain and is quick to change too, and that uncertainly means we’re surprised, overjoyed even, when everything aligns in our favour. A change of fortune that feels as sharp as the frosted air we suck in at the summit. These occasions take us so far out of our skins, they can feel revelatory.
Revelation. Punctuation. Transformation. Sheer surprise. Perhaps that’s why the best winter days linger so long in the memory.
TABLES TURN ON ELIDIR FAWR
Nick Livesey and friend welcome the unexpected on one of Snowdonia’s finest
It was in a cheerless mood that we traipsed up the Marchlyn service road towards invisible hills. I couldn’t think of much to say, and Jamie was unusually taciturn: a far
