Mountain or hill?

Over the weekend more snow fell. On this side of Morecambe Bay none arrived but on higher ground nearby it is a different story. Each day we’ve been out we’ve been stunned by the sheer beauty & magnificence of the Lakeland fells in their white blankets. Even the Pennines have their grandeur but seem more rounded than their Cumbrian fellows.

We’ve seen them from various angles, across different bays along Morecambe Bay. Every day this week has had at least some time of sunshine, making the snow glisten in the light.

At the weekend I had been doing a jigsaw of a view of the Dolomites from the Austrian side. Seeing the Lakeland fells now, I’m struck by how mountainous they seem, & yet they are not that high. Scafell Pike is the highest at 977m. And yet, at the moment, they look as tall and craggy as an alp. They haven’t got that brutality which is the result of the intercontinental plates crashing into each other that the Dolomites or the Rockies have, but they do have that feel of mountain rather than hill. Maybe they just seem higher because I tend to be looking at them across the stretch of the Sands & at first the land on the other side is fairly low lying too.

The light keeps changing, bringing out the contours in the bluey whiteness. I wonder what we’ll find when we venture out later today.