Often snow will lie for days down to the valley bottoms, and the higher roads stay blocked or in dangerous condition. This is the time for langlauf tours along riverside footpaths and through fields, or using the many paths and bridleways on the valley slopes. It is often possible to enjoy sunny sheltered skiing when the wind is driving the spindrift across the moors.

On those high pressure days when the sun shines from a clear blue frosty sky over a windless sparkling landscape, the high moors are ideal for extended tours. In fresh snow, perhaps still falling, and often accompanied by a bitter wind, tracks in the forest often give surprisingly pleasant sheltered skiing.

The tours described on these pages cover the full range from quick tours snatched in the forest during the short daylight hours of midwinter, through pub-to-pub rambles in the valley bottoms, to extensive skyline trips for the longer daylight and packed-down snow of February and often into March. Although all the tours as described can be completed in a day, or sometimes even just an hour or so, it would clearly be possible in prolonged good conditions to link together two or more into a grand multiday traverse, dropping down to hostelries at night, or perhaps even camping or snowholing for the truly manic.

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