#curiosityfoxes

The season of cross-country: of standing around stamping your feet to keep warm, of blowing on your fingers to keep the circulation going, of rasping breaths and frozen ground, destroyed by tractors and cemented into place by the below-zero temperatures. 

We’re on the road once more but grabbing every opportunity as it arises. The footwell in the car is littered with maps and we’re a third of the way through our journey to the UK as we enter Austria. The predicted snow levels are still a far-flung dream but certain mountains have been graced with its presence. Those are the ones we wanted to stop at. 

The temperature drops and the warm clothes come out, but even though you’re in the mountains, walking next to a frozen lake, a little secondhand delight will keep you toasty like a husky running. 

The season’s virtually over but there’s still a need and a desire to keep pushing. Hill repeats behind the house, taking the road up the mountain and reaching the plateau with its fountain. It’s never easy having to control the internal dialogue that wants you to ease back, to take it gently and roll back down the mountainside to your invitingly warm house. But autumn makes it worthwhile, the crunch of the leaves and the shafts of light as it breaks through the canopy of trees. 

What did you do on Saturday? We ran uphill.

“Wilderness is a term somewhat over-touted, especially in the population dense countries of Europe. And even though Hardangervidda is not technically classified as wilderness, it is one of the few areas that we have been to where the impact of humans is minimal. Stumbling across lemmings, reindeer antlers and wild blueberries, while wild for us, doesn’t match the abandoned and wasteland-linked definition of wilderness, but – words, definitions and synonyms aside – this is one of the most beautiful areas that we have ever seen.”  

PHOTO: Sport Pictures Cymru