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I passed not a single car on the drive up Wasdale. Though it was February, midweek, and a long time out of the tourist season, I did expect to meet someone, for the mountains were at their very best, white with snow beneath a cloudless sky. Flurries of spray blew wildly over a choppy lake, and crackle-dry bracken lay brown on the hillsides. Yet gorse bushes were in full bloom, their flowers, lured prematurely by the false spring of January, now trapped in a wintry clamp.

There were two cars parked at Wasdale Head, so it seemed that a few had, like myself, been seduced from lethargy by the promise of a good day on the hills. Well clothed against the cold, I began the steep ascent of Kirk Fell.

At first, I was in the relative shelter of the hotel buildings and trees, but soon an extra difficulty came in the form of a buffeting wind, a gusting instability that forced me to keep a low profile by crouching against the slope, and even crawling on hands and knees for some of the time.

There were periods of respite, but these lasted no longer than a minute, and became less frequent as I rose above the valley floor. A single wisp of cloud drifted past the summit of Great Gable and was dissipated by the gales. Elsewhere, the hills stood iceberg sharp against the sky. Far above me, a raven circled calmly, his flight-path out of reach of the eddying turbulence that swept around the inconsistencies of the mountain slopes. Indeed, as I ascended, the wind seemed to become less severe, and on the summit, declined almost to a gentle breeze. The cold, however, brought an ache and a paralysis to the face.

The summit of Kirk Fell is broad and level, but the snow covering, though thin, had partially melted, then re-gelled to a near concrete hardness, with a consequent treachery that caused the feet to slip on even the gentlest of inclines. The descent to Black Sail was quite tricky, because of its rocky steepness, and the patches of scree that punctuated the snow, but I was able to negotiate much of the drop by means of a balancing act across the boulders that stood proud of the slope.

The drag up Pillar, though long and slow, was far from tedious, for my gaze was continually drawn over the blade-sharp cornices that fringed the ridge, and down to the craggy spectacle that fell away toward Ennerdale. It was a view of little colour but marked contrasts, an abstract of snow and precipice, white and black, against a backdrop of the dark green forest of Gillerthwaite and the sunlit, bracken-brown slopes of High Crag and Haystacks, on the other side of the valley.

On a clear day, the view from the summit of Pillar is as extensive as from any peak in the Lake District, and this was a clear day. The clarity combined with the snow cover to create a sense of an almost Alpine magnitude, with crystal peaks reaching for a sky of unblemished blue.

There was a thin, smoky haze hanging around the lower slopes of Helvellyn and its satellites, perhaps blown there from chimneys to the south. To the west, however, nothing diminished the transparence of the air. Whatever else Sellafield may be guilty of, its effluent does not obscure the view. Only the Isle of Man, across the sea, suffered occlusion by the only cloudbank that existed in any direction.

I picked my way down the steps to Windy Gap, and up the rim towards Scoatfell. The combe to the right, dominated by the aptly named Steeple, lay in a deep, wintry shadow that would lock the snow into its gullies until late in the year. On the summit, the wall that trails here over many miles of hill and crag from the shore of Ennerdale Lake, only just peered out of the drifts. In a few weeks, the lingering remnants of the same snow, at present almost boastful in its ubiquity, would lie cowering from the heat behind these stones, while walkers would sunbathe a few yards away.

Broad snowfields, wind-rippled to look like sand on a beach, led down to the col, and up again to Red Pike. Then came the steep descent to Dore Head. The slope was at such an angle, and the snow of just the right consistency, that I was able to enjoy several playful glissades, the chunks of snow that broke away under my boots, sliding before me with the tinkle of Christmas tree baubles.

On the pass, I was faced with the choice of continuing up the rocky side of Stirrup Crag, or of launching myself down a very inviting scree slope that led back to the valley. I chose the latter. Having been here before, I should have known better, but the subtle seductions of scree running can often impair the memory. This must be one of the worst scree runs in the Lake District, and was made even less pleasurable by the frozen nature of the stones. After several falls, I moved onto the grass at the side, for a safer descent.

Walking back to Wasdale Head, along the valley floor, I watched Great End and Lingmell slowly turn a bright pink in the evening sun. I paused to take a drink from a spring. As I looked down into the water, I realised that this was perhaps the last day of winter, for floating there, in a clump about the size of my fist, was the first frogspawn of the year.

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