Sta.sh
A man with a frozen mustache stood upon his frozen hill. His breathing was a little accelerated, for he had only just climbed the hill. He took deep breaths and felt the frozen air filling his lungs. It was cold, but as clean as ever and that was what mattered.
He looked west, where the sun was setting behind a thick layer of clouds. A perfect white disc above the magnificent tree he had protected and helped grow so big. He remembered one day, it had not been much more than a sapling, when a horse of the neighbouring land had broken loose and almost trampled the little tree. He had calmed the horse at risk of himself. It was as if the tree had known, because every year since it was fully grown it gave tremendous amounts of walnuts, the best in town, so was told.
His breath twirled in small clouds around his aging head, every puff leaving more small freezing drops on his mustache. He swung to the right until he faced north, looking over the land. Everything was covered in a thick blanket of snow, even the smallest branches of the tiniest trees carried their part. He could now see the ditch that marked the border of his land. The little water that was in there was now frozen.
That ditch also brought up memories. He was ten years old running around a beautiful summer day, chasing butterflies or something similar. He had tripped over the root of a willow and tumbled down. His head hit an almost rock hard tree trunk and when he stood up he dizzily stumbled back to the house, or so he thought, he went the wrong direction and fell down the ditch which was mostly dry at that time of the year, but it was not dry enough to be without smell. Everyone had laughed at his stupid mistake, at first only the others, but soon he started laughing along. This memory brought tears to his eyes, the ones he laughed with were no longer here, but the tears were also tears of joy, because other wonderful people had come into his live, mostly filling the void that was left after the accident.
The frosting crawled up into his nostrils, freezing the tiny hair to the sides. He moved his jaw and upper lip, pulling the frozen together hairs loose. It made a crispy rustling sound. He made another quarter turn and watched over the fields edged by forests, with his small house standing on that edge.
It felt as if the clear sky also made the vision clearer. As if you looked through a lens you could see the branches of the far away trees, the scratches in the bark, made by the antlers of stags and the claws of cats. The world was perfectly white, with dark lines from the undersides where no snow could reach. The man with the frozen mustache smiled. A smile with a touch of sadness, but filled with happines for the beauty of the snow. The beauty was unmatched by anything he had ever seen and he only needed to climb one small hill to behold that perfect beauty.
He was now facing east, the way he came up the hill. From there a single trail of footprints walked up the hill, his footprints. He almost felt ashamed for leaving those. Making the single trail double was even worse. He looked south, the one direction he did not have a lot of memories about, looked back east, took a deep breath and with deep regret he started leaving a second trail next to the first one.
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To answer your first question, the character was steeped in emotion, but not a new overwhelming one. For this story - an older character remembering his past - it works brilliantly. However, if you're planning on writing something else with a character experiencing new emotion I would experiment with different writing styles than this one.
The landscape, however, was obviously beautiful but your descriptions themselves are not. This isn't a major problem, in fact many people don't consider it a problem at all, but you don't have any description of landscape that really captures me as much as your character descriptions do. I know the snow is beautiful because the story tells me it is so, and the descriptions do paint an image, but not a vivid one.
Finally, I feel like due to the nature of this piece you ended it very well (apart from the perhaps unnecessary 'the end'). It was a beautiful, emotional, and flowing dip into this character's world that came in full circle and ended with an almost metaphorical tone. The story of a life well lived. Of a man who has seen and experienced the beauty of his world. I, personally, loved it.
I am indeed quite new to the world of writing, this was my first 'real' attempt at setting a character. I have tried things before, but not as 'deep' as this.
As for the landscape, I also thought the descriptions were somewhat short or lacked something, but when I tried to describe more, things fell apart, so I played it safe.
The end
Yes, I think the emotion is clear enough, and the scenery was quite fantastic, but if you wanted to accentuate it as the focus of your piece, it could do with a little more catching descriptive phrases. And, the "flashbacks" had enough description to display the feelings that were tied to it, I believe.
Other critique I have for you is that your second and third paragraphs seem to make more sense connected. Also, in your fourth paragraph, it mentions a ditch which we were never informed about earlier. In that context, it sounds kind of awkward. Maybe all you need to do is change the sentence, and that would fix the slight awkwardness. And now, your last sentence:
He looked north, the one direction he did not have a lot of memories about, looked back east, took a deep breath and with deep regret he started leaving a second trail.
was a bit confusing. We know that he looked north, and he does not have any connects with the places in that direction. And then he looked back east. And then we're not sure where the second trail leads to, although we can vaguely assume that it was north. The sentence could be improved by fixing its structure so that it makes more sense.
And of my opinion, your piece was very nice, I enjoyed reading it.
And about his last time looking north, it should actually be south, because the ditch was north, so that's something I'll fix right away.
The second trail he made was going back the way he came from, so east. Making the single trail a double. He only 'looked' south (which previously was mistakenly called north), he did not turn there.
In my head, it all seemed pretty clear, I made this little drawing of how it looked (drawn with mouse, so don't mind the crappiness).
I did not want to go too deep into the turns he took and the directions he looked because I thought it might have broken the 'flow' of the story, but you do have a good point.
As I wrote this comment I'm still thinking about how to improve it
Thanks for the comment, it helped a lot, and glad you liked it.