Winter Comes Early

It was only a week ago we were enjoying the moors by bike. This time its back on the Ski's as the first snow of the winter arrived - yes in November. For once my days off coincided with the brilliant white out conditions. So dusting of the XC ski's i headed out to check out the trails.
In all i made 4 trips out to Boltby Forest, 1 gruelling trudge/trip round Guisborough Woods, and 2 cheeky trips round Stone Cross Leisure Centre Field!, totalling 14hrs and 72km. Yeah not fast and quite a few falls especially at Guisborough.
If the winters continue to remain consistent like this then we can almost guarantee some snow each winter good enough to ski on. The trails in Boltby in particular are really well suited to holding the snow and if you time it right  a local gamekeeper will cut some nice tracks for you to then ski in. There is a good mix of flattish wide forest roads, a few steeper descents/ascents and then a good network of smaller trails even if a little rough. We certainly think it has potential to hold a Ski-Orienteering competition sometime in the future and we have 'mapped' most of the trails for skiability. The only real difficulty is being able to guarantee folk can get to Boltby via the narrow lanes. Access from Sutton Bank to Sneck Yate is usually clear or kept passable along the top road by the local farmers, and then there is a space for maybe 6-8 cars.