I think most people would say summer is obviously best for anything outdoors, including walking. I’m not so sure.
Here in the temperate south of England I reckon winter is just as jolly for hiking a few miles. On all but the stormiest of sleeting days, combatting winter cold is simply a matter of a) walking fast and b) wearing enough.
It’s important to recognise that winter walkers do require one key characteristic, and it’s not masochism, or stupidity. I’m talking courage. It’s only human to skulk indoors after peering through your bedroom window and seeing clouds of condensation on the breath of people outside. That’s why you and I need courage to overcome the preservation instinct that directs homo sapiens to stay safe inside and watch TV all winter.
I summon winter courage by reminding myself of two supreme facts. Walking is good for me and it doesn’t cost much.
Winter is not just equal with summer for walking. I find winter is often better – once I get in my stride. I have come to this surprising conclusion after years of hoofing around, including walking across the New Forest three times and once walking from Winchester to London. Sometimes, walking on a summer’s day, I actually wish it was winter (That doesn’t happen all that often though).
Summer definitely has the edge in some respects. It offers long days, plenty of flowers, luxurious temperatures, and idyllic spots to stop for a picnic. Landscapes bleak and forbidding in winter are heavenly and welcoming from June to August. Bountiful nature invites your admiration in every direction. A mere field in winter becomes a meadow in summer. The horizon is softened by leaves on a thousand trees and everyone is in a good mood.
But summer can be wicked. A lot of its many insects have it in for me. Stinging nettles take delight in sabotaging my route. The jagged spoilsports deliberately stake out narrow footpaths at the very time of year when us carefree walkers are likely to be wearing shorts. And even if you’re not in shorts, some determined nettles still manage to get you, by growing to five feet. Nettles have stung my nose. And stretched across paths to draw your blood in summer are barbed rods. If nettles don’t hurt you in summer, bloodthirsty brambles will, mercilessly deploying ferocious spikes.
Then again, walkers know that winter, too, can be cruel. After summer’s pernicious weeds have shrunk away, winter’s equally sadistic strategy is to make everything wet. Whatever you brush past soaks your trousers. Ground not wet is covered in frost, or slippery ice. Happy winter walkers can be brought down to earth (often literally) by paths turned to seas of slippery mud.
The vicious pinch of winter keeps firm hold of my nose, however thick the clothing over the rest of me. Savage winter turns whole fields to swamps and creates oceanic puddles to test your determination – and your supposedly waterproof hiking boots. Your choice on facing Pacific-wide puddles is improvise a causeway or get wet feet and frozen toes. Winter walkers find much of biology has scarpered, along with colour. Only greys and browns show themselves.
But winter offers glories that summer cannot. It provides a telescope, stripping away most leaves, allowing us to see through hedges and woods. We can see for miles.
Winter’s low temperature speeds walkers, by reminding us to march fast to repel chill. Winter ousts my warm-weather lethargy, propelling me instead to Superman speed.
Invigorating winter is particularly nice for walkers in towns, where pavements banish winter mud. Winter walkers there don’t have to struggle into wellingtons or fasten yard-long boot laces. They hardly need change out of their bedroom slippers.
Wherever you live, no month is perfect. But any season is the right time for a long walk.