Mountains The Great British Winter

The British countryside in winter.

Cold, unforgiving.

As temperatures plunge,

the skies open, the winds rage and the light fades early.

This winter, we've seen extremes of weather,

mild, wet and freezing cold.

Conditions that have been treacherous,

sometimes even deadly for wildlife and people here.

Britain in the winter can seem devoid of life,

as if the natural world has shut up shop.

But scratch below the surface and it's amazing what you can find.

In this series,

I'm exploring five of our most extreme winter landscapes.

I'll be including some of my BBC colleagues' experiences

from over the years.

-Hello.

-Together, we'll reveal what's really out there

during this challenging season.

Warmth is one of those simple pleasures

that we just take for granted.

Today, I'm looking at mountains,

and where better than the Scottish Highlands?

I'll be discovering secrets hidden deep in its past,

learning how to spot signs of an impending avalanche.

Oh, look. Look, look, look! That's quite terrifying.

SHE LAUGHS

And meeting a shepherd who looks after a rather unique herd.

-Is this a good spot?

-Yes, this will be fine.

# Loh-oh-h. #

Welcome to the great British winter.

The British Isles celebrates a wealth of landscapes,

from windswept estuaries...

..to dense woodlands.

And in parts of England, Wales,

Scotland and Northern Island,

majestic mountains dominate the horizon.

These impressive ranges embrace the cold weather,

clutching the snow and mist to them like a warm winter coat.

but it's much tougher for people and wildlife

to survive out here.

I've come to the Cairngorm mountains in Scotland.

It's a range that features the tallest,

coldest and the snowiest plateau in the British Isles.

In the winter, it's the closest you can get

to experiencing the Arctic in Britain.

It is these conditions,

which make the range both breathtakingly beautiful

and extremely dangerous.

Tragedy struck here for the third time this year just weeks ago.

Police in the Scottish Highlands have confirmed tonight that a man

and a woman have died following an avalanche in the Cairngorms.

There had been warnings of the potential for avalanches,

and it is yet another reminder

of just how dangerous the Scottish mountains can be in winter.

The risks are considerable up here,

but the allure of the mountains keeps drawing people back.

This is the most extensive range of high mountains in the UK.

At just over 4,200 feet, the Ben Macdui peak

is the second highest mountain in the UK after Ben Nevis.

The Cairngorms plateau is 18 miles long and 12 miles wide

and in the depths of winter,

winds of up to 170 miles an hour can blast across it.

These mountains are made of some of the Earth's oldest walls of granite.

INDISTINCT

Dr Stuart Archer, a geologist from Aberdeen University,

has spent years studying the rock formation here.

You have to go back 500 million years

to understand how the Cairngorms were created.

It's hard to get your head around those figures, isn't it?

Really is. 500 million years ago.

A long time ago, but essentially, at that point,

Scotland was much further south latitudinally,

and there was a large collision between England and Scotland.

England suddenly came in, rammed into Scotland,

and basically the two plates collided and they created a mountain chain.

Wow. And so when was the ice age that we talk about?

How long ago was that?

The classic ice age would seem to be about 2.5 million years old,

but it's lasted right up to today,

so we're actually still in the grips of an ice age, technically speaking.

The best examples are of rows of valleys.

Those were all created around 24,000 years ago,

as the ice was probably at its maximum extent.

So, 24,000 years ago,

I want you to imagine a mile thick of ice at this location,

eroding and scouring all these borders and leaving this

beautiful scenery we've got at the Cairngorms, these U-shaped valleys.

What about this? Tell me what you're carrying this for.

Well, it's a very simple tool but what it allows us to do

is explain the age of the Earth in one metre.

-So this is how old the Earth is?

-Yes, 4.6 billion years.

-Ooh.

So if this is the age of the Earth, I just want to tell you

that Scotland's oldest rocks, or the UK's oldest rocks

-are basically created here.

-Wow.

-And as we come up through time,

this is when the Cairngorms were actually created, at this point here.

That's 500 million years ago.

So fairly recent in... the age of the Earth?

Exactly, if you look at the full extent of the Earth.

Now the mountains were created 500 million years ago

and the granites we see in the Cairngorms were intruded here,

nine centimetres ago, on this stick.

Now to tell you about the ice age, the last ice age,

I have to go and get another prop, an even smaller piece of paper

and this is just a set of Post-it notes.

These Post-it notes represent

-the Ice Age that we see the evidence for here.

-Very recent?

Really, really recent and then this last piece of the Post-it note,

just that last sheet, would be man's influence on the Earth and...

the actual Homo sapiens evolutionary story.

-It's that tiny, skinny one page at the top?

-That one page at the top.

That's impressive.

It's a great way of visualising the age of what we're seeing around us.

It's a simple tool, but it shows the antiquity of the Earth

and all the events relative to each other.

-So the mountains here are mostly made up of granite?

-Exactly, yes.

All of the Cairngorm plateau, all the Cairngorm massif is made of granite.

It's much harder than the surrounding rock.

Because it's much harder, it's remained proud and stood high.

That's why really we're dealing with high altitudes in the Cairngorms,

as the granite's so really hard.

-We could open a piece if you want and see what's inside.

-Yes.

So to do so, we'll just have to take a safety precaution,

-so if you don't mind sticking these glasses on.

-Oh, go on then. He-he.

Good thinking.

-Ah.

-And so, when we look inside the granite,

what we can see is that there's actually three minerals here.

In grey, we see a glassy mineral here, which is quartz.

In orange, we see a second mineral called feldspar.

It's this mineral that gives

-the granite its classic orange kind of colouration.

-Right.

There is one other mineral, in small quantities,

-but can you see this black mineral here?

-Oh, yes. Tiny bits.

So the tiny bits are biotech mica,

and this mica is in small quantities,

but it's actually very important for the chemistry of this granite.

So bringing it on to nowadays,

erosion happens all the time, I suppose, whenever water's around,

what sort of erosive processes

are still going on, particularly in the winter?

Well, we've just broken this up with a hammer, but essentially

these processes are ongoing in the landscape all the time, as you say.

And granite, for example, could be whole and then split apart

just because of the action of frost.

-There's a 9% expansion from water to ice.

-Wow.

And that 9% volume expansion allows...

that process to operate a bit like a jack

and you can imagine rocks being cleaved away from each other

because of that frost process.

For two million years,

Scotland would've been a frozen wasteland

with the nearest signs of life on the ice margins

in the south of the country.

Successive ice ages have advanced and retreated

with cycles of climate change,

moulding this Scottish landscape into what we see here today.

It's hard to imagine that just 10,000 years ago,

Scotland would've been in the grip of a permanent winter.

Back then, all sorts of unusual animals

would've roamed the frozen landscape,

as Alan Titchmarsh discovered on a winter visit to the Highlands.

At the end of the 19th century, a Mr Peach

and a Mr Horne were exploring this area,

when they came upon this cave.

And inside it,

they found something almost unbelievable.

Something that had never been found in Britain before.

But it wasn't in the mouth of the cave that they made their discovery.

Oh, no. It was way down in its darkest recesses.

Imagine exploring this eerie cave by candlelight.

Especially with what was hidden deep underground.

What did they find when they got here?

They found the remains of a bear.

But not just any old bear.

This is the skull of a polar bear.

And for a polar bear to have lived here,

it must have been as cold as the Arctic.

We're not talking millions of years here.

The skull they found wasn't a fossil. It was real bone.

Polar Bears must have been stalking the Scottish Highlands

practically yesterday.

So could this have been a scene,

not from the north of Norway, or the high Canadian Arctic,

but from where Blackpool, or Bristol are situated today?

A British Isles where musk ox and polar bears roamed wild?

It's almost impossible to imagine Britain

in the constant freeze of the Ice Age.

But the polar bear skull found in the cave

is a tantalizing clue to a frozen past.

A past when large mammals roved these Highlands.

Just 300 years ago, the Cairngorms were the last stronghold

of the grey wolf in Britain.

HOWLING

Roaming wild and feeding on carrion,

this large mammal is able to hear another wolf from six miles away

and smell their prey from one and three quarter miles.

This made them both perfectly suited

to surviving the winter on exposed mountain terrain

and also very good at keeping deer numbers down.

But hunting and loss of habitat through deforestation

resulted in the deer's natural predator

disappearing from this landscape and this country altogether.

WOLF HOWLS

However, there is a distant relative of the wolf on the rise

here in the Cairngorms.

And though they may look very similar,

they're a very different breed altogether,

as Matt Baker and Julia Bradbury discovered on a recent visit here.

Aviemore is home to the biggest dog sled race in the UK.

200 teams compete over a four-mile track

and for all of the mushers that travel here

from right across the country,

it's the culmination of years of training.

WOLF HOWLS

These sled dogs aren't pets.

They're animal athletes, and need lots of exercise and training.

Like any sporting star, you have to start them young.

Well, if you think there's just one type of sled dog, the husky,

think again and let me introduce you to this lovely lot.

We've got the Alaskan Malamute. There you are, my friend.

What about the Siberian Husky? There you are, just 11 weeks old.

The Canadian Eskimo Dog, there's a treat for you.

And last but by no means least, the Samoyed,

all distinctive breeds with special characteristics.

Once you've picked your breed, then you have to start training.

Matt Emery and wife Helen

have raised Siberian Huskies for over a decade.

Let's go!

So, Helen, of all the sled dogs, why do you go for the Siberian Husky?

'Siberian I like, because they're an athletic breed, um...'

they run fast and also, they're stunning to look at, as you can see.

They're all different, they're all beautiful,

but their working capability is just phenomenal.

Well, there's no doubt about it, Helen, these dogs are born to run.

But at what age do you start honing that instinct?

Really start them off

from as soon as they've had their vaccinations at 12 weeks old.

They come out, watch the team and they pick up so much

from the excitement that when they start running

a very short distance at five, six months old,

they know very much what's going on because they've watched the others

and picked up on the vibes coming through from them.

But of course, basic training is important too.

Before dogs are even hitched to a sled,

they need to learn their left from their right. DOG HOWLS

After they've found their voice, of course.

Julie, you've got me on a tricycle.

Yes, but this is the best way to start.

This is actually called a rig, it's not called a tricycle.

-Mmm.

-The same principles, I suppose, with three wheels.

But this is what we train and race on in the UK almost every year.

Right, so, give me some instruction.

-The first thing for you to do is make sure you're balanced OK.

-Yes.

It's a bit like riding a bike - make sure you've got your balance,

-make sure you know where the brakes are.

-Yes.

-OK?

-I've got those tight. I'm holding onto those.

-Great.

Hold on tight, so the dogs don't pull you away.

The next thing for you to learn is the commands.

We say, "hike" or "hike on".

That's when you want them to go, "Come on, guys, let's go. Hike on."

And then the other word is "whoa" when you want to stop them.

That's the most important word for me to learn.

-They might not listen to you.

-Great.

-Because they might just want to run.

-OK.

-Oh, my God!

-Go!

Slow, slow. Whoa.

Hike. Hike!

'After a shaky start, I'm getting the hang of it, I think.'

Hike! Hike! Hike!

Julia and I are going head to head in a race soon,

so I've come to see how her tuition's going.

Look who it is, it's Miss Marple in a ski suit.

THEY LAUGH

I'll have you know,

-this is a very important part of the training process.

-Is it?

-Yes.

Have you got snow tyres on? THEY LAUGH

-This is what most people race in on.

-Uh-huh?

-It's a rig.

-How is it going? All right?

-Yes, I think so.

If I were you, I'd be worried.

-Would you?

-Yes.

-OK, well...

-Miss Marple's on fire!

THEY LAUGH

-Have fun. I think I'm going straight for the sledge.

-Are you?

-See what happens.

-Show off.

DOGS HOWL

'We're not going to tackle the entire four mile track today.

'We're racing each other against the clock over a short distance.'

..three, two, one. Go!

There we go, we're off, we're off. Way-hey, I pulled a wheelie!

Oh, lovely stuff. Come on, girls!

Hike, hike, hike!

Ooh, it's a bit rickety there. Straight through.

Oh, they're kicking up some snow. Come on, girls! Get up.

Hike, hike, hike...

Ooh, I've taken a... Ooh, just caught a bit there.

Hike, hike, hike!

Listen to him. "Hike, hike."

Hike, hike! Hike, hike!

'Approaching the final stretch, I'm looking for any advantage I can get,

'bobbing down, to make myself more aerodynamic.'

Hike, hike!

Come on! Go, go, go!

Hand brakes are on.

'One minute 42 to beat.'

Wow, I can't hardly see.

-THEY LAUGH

-You've got tears in your eyes.

Oh, that is brilliant. It's literally a take off to start with.

It's a bit tricky on that left-hand side,

-you might sort of go up as the dogs try and go right.

-Oh...

Now it's my turn.

-Are we going?

-DOGS BARK

-ALL:

-Four, three, two, one...

-DOGS BARK

-Go. Hike, hike, hike,

hike, hike, hike, hike, hike...

'Poor dogs. I can't shut up.'

HE LAUGHS It's a good start.

-I tell you what, she's in the groove as well.

-Hike, hike, hike.

Go on, we've got it! Go. Running! Go! Hike, hike, hike, hike,

hike, hike. Whoa!

-Whoa!

-She's gone!

-Whoa! Whoa!

-SHE SHOUTS INDISTINCTLY

-Oi, stop!

-This is unbelievable.

-I'm still going. I'm still going.

-You know that, you know that turn into the snow?

-The bit I... Yes?

-Bump!

-Yes, you've got half of it on your helmet.

Hike! Hike! Whoa!

-Are you all right though?

-I'm absolutely fine.

-No aches and pains?

No aches or pains. But I've lost something quite important.

-Not the race, the dogs.

-THEY LAUGH

-You might want to take that as a souvenir.

-Thank you. It might melt.

Dog sled racing in the mountain lowlands

is becoming ever more popular as a sport.

And it's not the only winter activity on the rise here.

The higher slopes have always attracted climbers and walkers,

but nowadays these slopes also play host to skiers.

Around 55,000 people a year come skiing in the Cairngorms.

Conditions between November and March can be extreme,

so this number of visitors requires a dedicated team of workers

to ensure their safety and wellbeing.

The weather can change in a heartbeat,

so it needs to be monitored 24-7 for all the tourists that come here.

For some, that can mean a very early start.

Mountain rescue, avalanche and ski patrol teams are on hand,

making sure the area's ready

for the onslaught of Britain's winter thrill seekers.

-Hi, Adam.

-How are you, Ellie?

-Nice to meet you. All right?

-Yes, good.

-What an amazing piece of kit this is.

-It's nice, huh?

-Yes.

-Can you show me how it works?

-Yes, job done.

Although it's only 7am, ski patroller Adam

has already been working for several hours.

His job, to use his piste basher

to flatten the snow that's fallen overnight

and prepare the slopes for the day's skiers.

-When it's busy, we'll maybe start at three or four in the morning.

-Ooh.

Um... It depends on what the weather's been like.

If it's this time of year, early, like, January, February,

if it's good weather, we'll work through the night

and leave it prepared for the next day.

I'm not usually impressed by machines,

but this is a really amazing piece of kit.

This slope seems very steep to me.

We're coming up over the brow of the hill,

but that has been incredibly steep. How steep can this machine work on?

Er, 45 degrees. Yes, no problem.

Does it ever... Do you ever look up at a slope and think, no way?

Sometimes, yes. THEY LAUGH

For the really steep stuff, we have the winch on here

and that allows me to work on the steep slopes,

working down to stop us sliding down.

Have you got any tales of extreme weather? How bad's it been?

Oh, we get lots of extreme weather up here,

so there's lots of tales to tell.

We did have to evacuate the guys from the top station,

-the top of our funicular once.

-Wow.

They had two snowmobiles up there. They'd gone up there to do some work

while the train was switched off.

Um... When they come out the door, the weather had closed in

and they could hardly see their hand in front of them.

They just had to feel their way down.

-So the wind was over, in excess of 130 miles an hour.

-You're kidding.

And, yes, the whole machine was getting blown about.

Even you must have thought, "I'm not sure if we're going to make this."

That must have been touch and go for you.

We have all the snow fences, so if you find a fence,

you can follow it down, like a road map.

But you're driving with your head out the window

and when you're outside...

all the fresh, drifting snow is taking your breath away.

-It was so, so wild.

-That's extreme.

The threat of danger up here

in the Scottish Highlands in winter is very real.

Two PhD students and a junior doctor

have been named among the four climbers

who were killed in an avalanche in Glencoe in the Highlands.

The climbers who died had fallen about 1,000 feet...

A man and a woman have died

following an avalanche in the Cairngorms...

The avalanche happened at 12:30.

Three people were caught in the avalanche...

This is thought to be one of Scotland's worst climbing accidents.

We know...

Only last winter, there were 178 known avalanches here,

ranging from a one to a four, with five being the worst.

And 22 of those were thought to have been caused by humans.

Although it's incredibly beautiful here,

it's also very dangerous.

As a senior forecaster,

Mark is one of the unseen heroes of the mountain.

He helps determine the likelihood of a snow event,

such as an avalanche.

He has various ways of profiling the snow

to judge which areas might be at greatest risk,

but no one way can provide a definitive answer

whether an avalanche will happen or not.

So there's a whole different raft of tools,

I suppose, that you use in order to assess the likelihood of avalanches?

That's right. We can see what we've got.

I'm amazed you fit it all into that small rucksack there.

Obviously, I've got a shovel, which I'm going to use to excavate...

a hole, if you like, so I can sort of see the different layers.

Really, what we're interested in is how those layers knit to one another.

-OK.

-Because that really is how an avalanche occurs.

If the layers aren't knitting together,

then you get one layer sliding on top of another.

And especially now when we have such stormy weather,

it's really unstable at the moment.

This gives me an idea of how those layers are sticking together.

And is this something you would do every day that you're out

looking for signs of avalanche potential?

-Yes, every day.

-Every day? Wow.

So what can we see here? To me, this just looks like a wall of snow.

-Right. If you look at it we can see...

-Oh, yes.

-..there's a very distinct layer.

-Yes.

Obviously, that's really light and that gets really icy and hard

and that's because it really rained and began to freeze

and so that's this top layer.

So this snow here's all since yesterday.

This is really sort of what's come through last night

and during the day.

I mean, we are quite low down in the mountains.

We're about 500 metres here.

Higher up, in certain places, that would be really deep.

-I mean, it may well be chest deep in places.

-Wow.

-Because the wind is pushed into those areas.

-Yes.

-So is that any kind of risk? Would that profile be of concern?

-Yes.

What we need to do now is explore and see how the snow behaves.

This top stuff, you'll see, see how loose it is.

You squeeze and it's not exactly gone into...

-With one squeeze, into a really good snowball.

-Yes.

-It's quite dusty even, isn't it? Dry looking.

-Dusty, light.

I would say that given how loose and powdery it is,

there's going to be weaknesses in there.

What else do you look for?

Um, well, what we can do is actually see how this top layer

is adhering to this icy layer.

-All right?

-Yes.

-So what I can do is take a sample, isolate a little area

and tap it from below and see how it behaves.

OK, so, now we're going to see

-if there's any layers in that new snow that may fail, all right?

-Right.

So, we're putting a shock on it, a bit like a person would

if they were on the surface, all right? So we tap it underneath.

-Not so much yet. Let's give it a bit firmer...

-Oh.

-And see how it cleaves.

-It cleaves right off there.

OK, so if there's a little layer in there,

there's something in there that made it slide. All right?

And that might only be a millimetre thick,

-but you can see how it builds up and builds up.

-Yes.

So that layer will remain weak, but more and more snow on top of that

-will make that much more significant, won't it?

-Yes.

So then with a magnifying glass, you can look at what the grain is.

In this layer that's cleaved off, you look at that...

-Because that's what producing the sliding surface.

-Right.

-See how...

-Ooh, that looks different.

-Fluffy.

-Yes, it is.

Like dust, almost.

-Yes.

-So you pick up, you build up a picture from all these

different tests that you do as well as looking around you.

What do you do with that information?

Right, well, this is only part of it.

The next most important thing is to actually travel

because this sample, it's only a little metre square.

You know, we want to make sure how relevant it is

to the whole landscape.

And from that, we can then produce a true avalanche report,

because we know what the distribution is of any weak snow.

And they'll range from relatively small-scale events

to the more epic ones that potentially cause...

-cause harm.

-That's right. We scale them in different sizes.

So one... Zero's not quite big enough to bury somebody,

then another size is big enough to bury somebody

and the next is big enough to bury a car.

Then the next one, which would be a three, or a four,

would bury a train carriage.

So that's how we sort of grade the size of the avalanches, if you like.

Avalanches rarely occur unprovoked

and there are some other tell-tale signs to look out for.

Light snow drifting over a frozen surface,

large, irregular collections of snow on rounded contours,

or overhanging crags

and cracks radiating outward from your footprints.

These are just some things that can indicate avalanche-prone snow.

With Mark's expert guidance, he takes me to a safe place

to show just what can happen if you're caught out.

So, we can do a little test if you like.

We'll go across towards that edge

and see if it fractures near our feet.

-OK, that sounds quite nerve-racking.

-Do you want to go first?

-Not really, but go on...

-So, go across there.

Sort of go in that direction. Let's see what happens underneath our feet.

-Keep going.

-Whoa.

-It's quite deep, so...

-Are you sure this isn't going to send me down the edge?

-Let's see.

I'm up to thigh level here. And... There's some cracking over there.

Oh, my God. Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa! Wow.

-THEY LAUGH

-I'm quite close to the edge.

Yes, I can see how that happens. That's quite terrifying.

-There it goes, there it goes.

-SHE LAUGHS

Do you need any more clues than that?

-I'm convinced. I am convinced.

-THEY LAUGH

There we go. Ah...

-I'm relieved to be back up here, I can tell you.

-SHE STRAINS

Jobs like Mark's are vital,

because tragedy can often just be a step away.

It's clear this terrain deserves the utmost respect,

because temperatures can often go below minus 15

and blizzards are pretty commonplace.

Extreme climber John Lyle knows this better than most.

Last winter, BBC cameras joined him on the mountains.

At this time of year,

only the most skilled mountaineers can tackle this range.

And though John's climbed the Andes and the Himalayas,

it is these mountains in winter

that keep drawing him back, time and time again.

The Cairngorms have got a vastness...

a sort of beauty to tap into that other areas don't have.

To get to some of the more remote spots,

John will often overnight on the mountain

and this means building a snow hole,

which is a skill he's still perfecting...

I think over years, mountaineers have, sort of improved them,

and learned, as we all do, by our mistakes, of getting dropped on.

John and his companion need to work fast,

as daylight hours in winter are limited.

He works out which part of the snow bank is least likely to collapse

and gets stuck in.

Getting through the most recent snowfall is the easy part.

As you dig further and further in,

you just get through all the ages of the snow, really.

All the months going back, all the way back to the end of November.

If there are two of you, you normally dig two tunnels in,

and then you dig towards one another.

Ah. Mr Preston, I presume.

A snow hole is the only way to get through the night up here during the winter.

The temperature on the inside of the snow cave is around 20 degrees higher

than on the outside.

Up here, without shelter, you could freeze to death.

It makes for a decent night's rest

and means John can make the most of the next day's climbing.

'I think it's great. One candle lights up the whole place

'and it makes a really cosy place, out of the wind.'

Cheers. Slange.

The Cairngorms can be just as testing as the Arctic.

When it comes to the weather, no two days are the same up here

and the next morning high winds

and temperatures way below freezing greet them.

In the Cairngorms, temperatures can dip as low as minus 27 degrees,

but it's the wind chill that makes the peaks so hostile.

170mph winds, the highest ever in the UK, have been recorded here on the summit of Cairngorm.

This is the sheer crag known as Helm's Lan.

The climb is a mix of rock and ice,

perilous because the conditions of the ice are ever-changing.

'The snow will be blowing down onto the face you're climbing on.

'You can't see where your ice axes

'and crampons are because there is so much snow moving around you.

'But you can still climb in those conditions.

'Ah, winter climbing in the Cairngorms is the best climbing there is.

'I think it's very special.'

Despite its dangers, for someone like John the appeal of pitting himself against this

terrain in winter easily outweighs the risks involved.

'The big, wild expanses of plateaus, the hidden quarries,

'the places that take a lot of effort to get to,

'to me they've got as many challenges as I can want in my whole life.'

John Lyle shares the mountain in winter with a variety of wildlife.

All of them, like him, incredibly tough.

One of the most resilient here in the Cairngorms is the mountain hare.

This mammal is very well adapted to withstand the arctic conditions here

and will be found living above 1,600 feet.

In winter, its fur changes colour from russet brown to grey or white,

which helps to camouflage the hare against the snow from potential predators like peregrine falcons.

Indigenous to Scotland, with around 350,000 of them in all,

the mountain hare is smaller and more compact than the more common brown hare in Britain.

Their smaller size helps to conserve body heat in the cold of winter.

This mammal will also conserve food.

As there's little to eat, it has one meal,

and then consumes it again by eating its droppings,

getting every last nutrient out of each feed.

Mountain hares are perfectly adapted to life up here,

but they're not alone.

At more than 1,000 feet, there is a surprising winter

resident in these mountains as Alan Titchmarsh explains.

There's a creature living here that defies the odds.

I'm pond dipping.

Now, I know it sounds bizarre, and although this pond's been frozen,

on and off, for the last couple of months,

it still contains some rather surprisingly forms of life.

What's more, I'm collecting something you'd expect to see

at a very different time of year.

Tadpoles. What are they doing here in the middle of winter?

Well, to find the answer to that, we have to discover what

went on here last spring.

In early spring, our Highland pools are often fringed with snow

and covered by ice but it doesn't deter the frogs around here.

They're common frogs, the sort you find in your garden

but these are undoubtedly the Sherpa Tenzings of the species.

They are busy even when the temperature is below zero.

They mate in the snow and the females lay their eggs in ice cold ponds.

Then they leave them to grow on their own.

But their development into froglets is far from ordinary.

In my garden in the south of England,

the frogspawn appears in the pond towards the end of February.

The tadpoles follow and the young frogs emerge from the pond in around July.

But up here, it's so cold they don't have a chance to complete

the life cycle in a single season.

So although these little fellows hatched last spring,

they won't turn into frogs until this coming summer,

which means they'll have taken a record 1.5 years to develop.

I think perhaps it's time to put them back into this pond

and let them get on with growing.

You know, it's tough being a Cairngorm tadpole.

Well, it's hard being a Cairngorms anything.

Regardless of size, you have to be pretty tough to survive out here

in these hostile conditions in winter

and that goes for plants, too.

In the colder months,

heather dominates many of the UK's mountain ranges when our other native plants die back.

It is this humble plant that is food

for many of the Cairngorms' winter residents

and forms an essential part of the intricate ecosystem here.

David Lambie is a local heather expert.

-Hi, David. How are you doing?

-Hi, how are you?

-Good to meet you.

-Pleased to meet you.

-What are you digging for here?

-Well, believe it or not, I'm digging for heather.

-Really? Are you having much luck?

We've gradually got down to it.

There's a sprig down here which I'll get for you. There we are.

There it is.

So how is it able to survive in these incredibly cold conditions?

-They have needlelike leaves.

-Little tiny ones there.

Yeah, the needles are covered in hair, which helps to insulate it.

And actually, calluna, this is Calluna vulgaris,

wild heather, we've got about three million acres of that here.

And it produces its own antifreeze protein,

which I believe has been used for some confectionery,

-ice cream and suchlike.

-Amazing.

But it's these three factors, which help to protect

the plant during the winter months.

And it seems to survive pretty well, even under the snow.

Well, the snow actually is good for it in many respects

and underneath the snow, a blanket of snow, it's probably a degree

or two warmer under the snow than it is without any snow.

-So it's preferable to be under the snow?

-Absolutely.

A degree or so warmer.

How high in altitude can you find heather growing?

It diminishes in size the higher you go.

When you get up to probably around the 2,500, 3,000 foot contour,

you are probably going to get very prostrate heather. Very flat.

In latitude terms, where are we level with now?

In latitude terms, believe it or not,

-we are level with Moscow, Hudson Bay and the Gulf of Alaska.

-So chilly.

That's our latitude.

-So it's not really surprising that we have these conditions.

-Indeed.

What kind of wildlife does the heather sustain?

Does anything dig down for it or does anything live on it?

At high attitude, you'll probably get ptarmigan, mountain hare.

The main beneficiary, probably, of heather is the red grouse.

Black grouse feeds on it as well.

The grouse needs the young shoots for nutritional value,

but it also needs the long, rank heather to hide from prey

like peregrine falcons and suchlike.

Do humans make use of the heather in the winter?

Yeah, they very often use it for, or would do in days gone by,

they would use it for insulation, insulating the houses,

for kindling, pots, covers, floor tiles, doormats, besoms.

-Wow, plenty of uses!

-Lots of different uses.

-That's wonderful.

Our humble heather is used in such a variety of ways by both wildlife

and humans living here. It's a key ingredient to sustaining life

during this most unforgiving season.

To survive the tough conditions of the British mountains in winter,

you have to be fairly resourceful.

From December to March, it can be a pretty uncomfortable place to be.

But there are those who are not put off by the demands of this environment.

Over in Snowdonia, it can be a welcome challenge.

Last winter, the BBC came here to film park warden Rhys Gwynn as he headed to work.

Winter down here in the southern end of the park can be very

different to the weather north in the high mountains.

Snowdonia's only about 40 miles long or thereabouts

but my patch can seem like a different world altogether.

For Rhys, there's nowhere he'd rather be than

here in southern Snowdonia in wintertime.

Humans have been living here for over 6,000 years,

but it's only in the last 60 that we've sought to preserve it

with a national park and Rhys's role as park warden is relatively new.

Over the space of a year, the challenges of his job will

change as often as the weather.

He has to balance protecting Snowdonia's wildlife

and culture with the coming and going of some 9 million people

who visit the park every year.

In the quieter months, his only distraction

comes from the animals which remain over the winter.

The sound of winter for me is the sound of ravens.

This is the time of year, January,

when the ravens start to establish their territories.

It won't be long before they'll be nestbuilding.

They are perhaps the spirit of the mountain,

they keep an eye on the Welsh.

It's almost like an open-air concert for free.

But Snowdonia is more renowned for its unique plant life than its birdsong.

And it falls upon Rhys to know the flora in minute detail,

even though they're spread across an area larger than Liverpool.

And winter is the time to visit one of the area's rarest residents.

Juniper's a very rare plant in the southern part of the park.

They seem to be limited to three individual shrubs.

The male ones produce cones with pollen on them

and the female ones obviously produce the berries,

the juniper berries that are so famous for flavouring gin.

They are obviously in difficult circumstances

and anything we can do to help should be done, really.

By taking hardwood cuttings at the end

of their growing season when the plant is at its strongest,

Rhys is ensuring that these rare junipers have the best chance of taking root.

It'll be another year before he can return the sapling

to its mountainside home but the pay-off is worth it.

A healthy juniper plant can live another 250 years.

Higher up in the mountains of North Snowdonia,

shepherd Gwyn Thomas was also filmed facing his own challenges last winter.

He sees his job as more of a calling.

If you asked any shepherd or any farmer,

very few would say that it's just a job.

You farm from your heart.

People often say how lucky I am.

And over the years, I'd be thinking, "Me, lucky?

"Running after sheep and wrestling with cattle?"

And now that I'm getting older, I think, "Yes, I am lucky."

I have been very, very fortunate to spend all my life on the mountains.

This is one of the hardest places in Britain to farm sheep.

The unpredictable climate in winter means that Gywn has to be

constantly aware of the conditions.

Penning sheep down here in the Ogden Valley is done much the same

as it was three centuries ago when Gwyn's family first started farming.

Because the winter is coming in now,

we're preparing the sheep for the winter holidays,

checking that they're fit and healthy on their feet,

and also it's been a very wet season,

so we're giving them a drench against fluke, liver fluke.

That can affect them.

And because I'm organic, I'm limited to the treatments I can give,

so we're just preparing the ewes now, ready for them to leave the farm,

go down to lowland pastures for the winter.

Welsh mountain sheep have been bred especially to cope with

the inhospitable mountain conditions, but Gwyn still has to

send his flock to lowland pastures just to survive the winter.

Little grass grows at high altitude at this time of year,

and without it, the sheep could starve.

When they've gone away, at least you know,

well, if the weather does turn bad,

at least they've got a better opportunity to stay alive.

The old shepherds used to say the best shepherd is the white shepherd.

The snow will bring them off the tops.

If we do get a good covering of snow, then everything stops.

I like a good, hard winter, where things do go to sleep.

It charges the battery of the Earth, you know, to kickstart it for spring.

People might think that I'm a bit odd, but maybe they're right too.

But I really enjoyed the quietness of this period.

There are not many farmers left who can make a living in these mountains.

In winter, Gwyn has to rely on a lifetime of experience

if he is to keep his flock from succumbing to Snowdonia's unpredictable environment.

Conditions like this can really test the mettle of anyone working

with animals in the mountains, where it's just you

and your herd against the elements.

Here in the Cairngorms, there's a shepherd with a herd that's unique in Britain.

Although there are no longer any completely wild reindeer here,

Tilly's herd, brought over from Scandinavia in the 1950s,

comes fairly close.

-So how do you call a reindeer?

-Loudly!

-Right, OK.

And quite melodically. So it's... # Lohhhh-ohhhhh, come, now. #

-But a bit louder than that.

-OK. Louder still?

-If possible.

OK, I'll do my best.

# Lohhhhhhh-ohhhhhhh. #

-Let's see what happens.

-Very melodic, isn't it, very tuneful.

-It is.

You want your sound to carry and interestingly, even if the wind's against you,

and it is today, the wind's blowing down to us,

it's amazing how they just hear that sound.

'The call we're making is meant to replicate the sound

'a reindeer herder's horn would have historically made.'

Although it's very snowy, and it's very cold,

and we're hungry, actually, the reindeer aren't.

Their appetite falls in the wintertime

and they have a much lower metabolic rate.

They've done all their feasting in the summertime, all their growing,

all their getting ready for the winter, preparing themselves.

They're then in calf

and they survive in calf right through the winter time,

just feeding on lichens and heathers and sedges,

-and it's their own body fat that helps the calf grow.

-No sign yet.

We'll give another shout, I think. OK, go for it.

# Lohhhhhhhh-ohhhhhhhhh. #

So here they are, just coming over the skyline now.

And actually the leader is a young female called Diddly.

There's plenty! I'm not expecting this many. How many in the herd?

Well, there should be 65 or so in the group here today.

Some of them have calves born last year, so they're now nine months old,

and the cows will be in calf. They're calving in May.

Some of the reindeer will have their antlers still from last year. Some of them may have lost them.

Am I right in thinking they sometimes chew on the antlers once they've shed?

Very much so. It's a real recycling process. Full of calcium,

that's how they've grown. And to grow new ones, they need the calcium back in their bodies.

And for a female reindeer in particular,

it's quite important because not only does

-she have to grow antlers, which need calcium, she produces milk.

-Wow.

-Hello!

-And as we see,

we've got mothers coming down with their calves.

Not getting any milk now, the calves,

but still enjoying the bond with their mother

because if the mother does nothing else for them, it gives them status in the herd.

Their antlers are there for pushing other reindeer around and Hopper,

although she doesn't protect her calves, she certainly doesn't,

if anyone gives it a hard time,

-she would certainly have something to say about it!

-Wow, this is fantastic.

As you can see, a lot of bolshiness, a lot of pushing around.

When the food's under the snow and you've got to dig a hole for it,

you want to protect that. So the antlers are there for that.

What adaptations do the reindeers have to living in this climate?

Well, it's all about their coats.

They have hair from the tips of their noses to the bottom of their feet.

And that coat is so well insulating, when they lie on the snow,

they don't even melt it. No cold gets in and no heat gets out.

Everything says we live in a cold climate.

And you may be cold today and I may be cold today,

-but these reindeer are in their element!

-Extraordinary.

Winds of 170mph have been known on the top of Cairngorm.

-Do they come down when the conditions are that bad?

-No.

They stay out here all the time.

And in fact, they don't even seek shelter, these reindeer,

because if they seek shelter, they go to areas where the snow drifts,

and then it will be completely heaped up with snow.

So they actually go up on these exposed ridges

and they just sit it out.

But this is really one of the few places in the UK that's ideal for them, this sort of environment.

It's actually the only place in the UK.

The Cairngorms is the only Arctic and sub-Arctic area

left in Great Britain and that's because of its positioning

in Great Britain, centrally placed in the Highlands, and its height.

So that's why they were originally brought here back in 1952.

And you've got the space, of course. And they like to roam.

They certainly do, and they've roamed a long way to get here today!

-Well, let's make it worth their while. Shall we give them some food?

-That's a good idea.

Right, so we just put the feed out in a line, basically.

-There's a lot of interest here.

-There is a lot of interest.

You can see they're very quickly eating it. All of that will go.

-I'm right in their way.

-They'll soon tell you if you're in the way.

It's been a strange weather year. How has that been for the reindeer?

It's actually been a very good year for them. The farmers have complained

that the stock have come through the summer in bad condition

but my reindeer couldn't have come off the mountain looking better.

And the ones to indicate that are the calves.

They've come back with lovely antlers, points on their antlers,

big, stocky chaps all ready to face the winter time.

-Why do you think this is?

-They just are adapted for this environment.

-So the tougher it is, the better they do, really?

-They certainly do that.

These reindeer are uniquely adapted for insulation

and conservation of energy.

Down at this low level, for animals like the reindeer,

life is pretty easy.

Higher up the mountain, at 2,000 feet,

conditions can get particularly tough for wildlife and for humans

as cameraman Gordon Buchanan discovered when he came here

to try and film Britain's toughest bird, the ptarmigan.

Is really hard to believe that anything can exist up here

when the weather's so harsh like this.

I've got layers and layers of clothing on.

I don't think I'm going to last much more than one night here

but there is a bird that spends its entire life up here in the mountains.

It's a true Arctic specialist. The ptarmigan.

It's a type of grouse that adapted to live in the extreme

conditions of the high mountains,

and it has the reputation of being the UK's toughest bird.

I've been given special permission to camp up here.

Winter days are short and it means that I can be out at first light.

But putting a tent up in gale force winds isn't easy.

Oh, gosh, that's nice. Warmth is one of those simple pleasures

that we just take for granted.

Incredible to think that these ptarmigan are living

out there without all of the kind of comforts I've brought up with me.

Oh, boy, that's good. I'm going to try and get some rest.

In the morning, the weather has closed in.

It is foul out there.

I took all this equipment up, the tent, all this clothing,

to stay warm, dry, cosy up here at the top of the mountain,

but I'm having an increasing appreciation

for what these ptarmigan are up against.

I'm not warm, I'm not dry and I'm definitely not cosy.

I'm going to have a look around this area. Apart from the cold

and wind, the other thing we've got to compete with is visibility.

Trying to see anything up here is difficult.

Something as well camouflaged as a ptarmigan,

I think, is going to be pretty tough on a day like this.

With conditions so bad, I've got no choice

but to move down the mountain, below the cloud line.

It's really incredible, not only how quickly the weather changes

but the weather down here is completely different

to how it is up on the top. Now we can actually see where we're going.

Oh, there we go. I knew they were going to be around here. Perfect.

There's lots of cool ways that ptarmigan have evolved to exist up here.

They're entirely covered in this soft, very downy feather.

Even their feet are feathered.

They act as snowshoes as well as insulating their feet.

They're even feathered right up to their nostrils.

You can see them picking away on the vegetation.

It's this kind of Alpine, low, woody,

kind of shrubby type of stuff that they're picking on.

They'll actually store food in their crop so that through the dark,

cold nights, they can sit there, regurgitating the things

that are in their crop and feed through the night. It's like a packed lunch built into your neck.

The thing that really does it from me

with these birds is their ability to change colour.

As the mountaintops get covered in snow and become white,

the ptarmigan also change their colour and become white.

That's pretty clever.

When the weather's really bad,

the ptarmigan will actually dig little snow holes

and tuck themselves down in there.

Ptarmigan definitely are one of my favourite birds.

It incredible that they can exist up here, 365 days of the year.

And it's not just the birds themselves that I love,

it's where they live, their habitat,

the mountains of Scotland that I just simply adore.

It's the most fantastic place on the planet.

And what I learned after last night

is that they belong here and I don't.

Ptarmigan are perfectly suited to these snowy slopes,

but the Cairngorms also boasts one of our most iconic raptors.

And to see them, you have to look to the skies.

Golden eagles were originally found all over Europe,

but like most other raptors, they were widely killed by farmers

and gamekeepers which caused serious declines,

both in their numbers and range.

Despite this, the eagle managed to survive in small numbers in Scotland.

Aided by conservation measures,

today, over 400 pairs of golden eagles live here.

One of our largest raptors, the golden eagle's wingspan

measures around 6.5 feet and they can range up to 90 miles.

They have over 2,000 feathers, from tiny, warming, down feathers

to keep out the cold, to broad flight feathers.

The golden eagle normally hunts down its prey, but in winter,

snow and ice can deplete the supply and even this skilful predator is forced to scavenge,

feeding off hares, grouse and ptarmigan as well as large mammals.

Its success in the highlands is partly due to the high stocks

of red deer and sheep in these glens,

and the inevitable casualties of the harsh winters here.

The population density of the golden eagle in Scotland

is now one of the highest in the world

and winter here is the perfect time to observe this majestic bird.

Surviving winter in our British mountains isn't an easy task

for wildlife or the people who live here.

It requires adaptation, specialist skill,

and, ultimately, the acceptance

that it's the weather that rules the terrain

and decides how each day plays out.

It's a pretty humbling experience

to realise how insignificant we are in this British winter wonderland.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd