Young country diary: My favourite walk to my favourite tree | Sammy

Hood hill, North Yorkshire: It's a huge sycamore on top of a hill with amazing views of the Dales. Now we just have to get to itA crisp clear day and welcome relief from a soggy winter - we're off on my favourite walk, to Sammy's Tree. There's nothing to beat a hill climb on a winter's day - frost and ice underfoot, the odd patch of snow on the hills above. We start on a track through mature conifers and ancient cherry trees, passing some hazel trees, their catkins already fully extended. A fallow deer, all legs and mottles, scurries away through the trees (much better than seeing a dead one on the roadside) and a flock of finches races through the treetops.Then we burst out on to the open hillside which is covered in dormant heather and bilberry. A pair of grey squirrels chase each other round a stunted scrub oak, the green and grey lichen on the branches letting us know how clean the air is up here. At last, we're on the ridge, with a sharp drop on either side and views stretching more than 30 miles over the Vale of York to the Yorkshire Dales. The sharp nose of Penhill, the gateway to Wensleydale, sparkles in the sunlight. We pass a crater showing where a bomber crashed in the second world war. Then, finally, we reach the top and the best bit of all - Sammy's tree! It's a huge sycamore that crowns the hill on the remains of a Norman motte-and-bailey fortress - and it just has to be climbed. Continue reading...