Berwyn arrival.

-3°C to -6°C (at summits). Brisk NE, mostly sunny.
February mountain day! There’s a first.

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The morning after.

Arrived yesterday about 6pm as it got dark. The camp owner fixed of us with some firewood and directions. I drove down the pastel track to the field but got the car stuck in the bottom corner. The mud was fees and gummy. The priority was to sit.I the tent and make food. The car can stay where it is for the night.
But there was an odd noise in the field.
For the first time I used firestarters with no kindling. Surprised, it worked quite easily. Sitting to fact your supper under a cold clear sky is, under these circumstances, a pure pleasure. It was so clear that even under a bright first quarter, the stars and clusters were in sharp contrast. Not far from the moon were the Pleiades.
There’s also little white lights of a another kind- horses. They hung their heads over the gate to greet. Some horses are agreeably good looking like the one in Poldark. Here were not those horses. The Shetland pony was especially ugly, a real bag of spanners.
After fixing the fire, next was time to cook. This is also the time snow started to fall. There’s another first- prepare a meal in snowfall. The tricky bit, apart from handling the pans with cold hands was visibility. Each flake was bright in the headtorch beam. In the contrast, more distant objects were harder to make out.
Eventually, fed and watered, I sat by the fire reading and occasionally looking up at the stars that appeared from time to time.
By bedtime, the whole sky had cleared and temperatures fell hard and fast.

Planning a hike.

Maybe next week:  Cadair Berwyn just beyond the Welsh border.
It’s approximately 800m high on a ridge with soft heathery slopes on the west and cliffs, opposite,
With luck, the weather will be terrible. Mist would be great, or blazing sunshine, either really. The sun brings colour, the mist brings interesting navigation.
I want to camp there for at least one night. I have never camped in February before.
Continue reading

Coldest day, (annual average)

1°C, sunny, quite nice really.
Sent home. So unwell despite driving in to work. My tutor group is upstairs and the two flights emptied my energy. Nearly at the right room, I saw their previous Form Tutor and had to ask her to register them.
One of the managers could see the state I was in and ordered me home.

Home. Sleep.

Soup for lunch and noticed birds interested in the feeders I put out on Saturday. Four Coal Tits, 2 Blue Tits and a pair of blackbirds.
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Spring is coming. Feeling grotty again after the avian excitement, Plas-y-Brenin rang. About the query yesterday, this guy was more upbeat about my question: “How do I know whether I am ready for assessment?”.
Optimism shot up after his opinion. I’m going for the easter date. It only gives a week before the Silver and Gold training.
There, I have a plan:

Practise more micro-navigation,
Read up on legislation,
Practise timing against our route cards.

There are two more stages:
1 camp skills Module,
2 Mountain Leader Qualification.
3 feel a warm satisfied glow.

Loop round Llyn Idwal

14°C, strong SW but dry with clear summits.

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Two mile walk around this familiar lake. We found a dry and surprisingly green landscape.
The lip of this corrie whipped up the wind that funneled up the Nant Ffrancen. Though grey, clouds were easily clear of the summits. I could only imagine what conditions were like on the tops. You could probably double the windspeed up there. Apart from that, it’s a good day for walkers. Rocks are dry and low level temperatures above 12°C; no ice on the ridge.

Long walk on the shortest day.

8°C, clear sky with building light cloud. The usual SW breeze,
I hiked with MapMyRide+! Distance: 4.64mi, time: 01:14:11, pace: 15:59min/mi, speed: 3.75mi/h.
http://mapmyride.com/workout/1284668245
Thick, slippery mud was impossible to escape.
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Both Ford crossings were impassible too, the water was just too deep. Since I’m ultra smart, I prepared an alternative route that crossed footbridges instead.

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Night walk selfie


Carl took this nighttime selfie while we did the Blair Witch lights thing.
I was out-shone by their lights. By myself, the headtorch I have is plenty. It’s a Petzl Tikka 2 which was great the time I was benighted near Glen Coe in 2014. When the others had 200 lumin lamps, mine couldn’t compete. However, bright lights frequently spoiled our night vision especially after holding up the map. No strong reason to upgrade then, but perhaps a stronger hand torch would work well.
Next time, I will take a bike light.

Summer summary.

I rode Fixed with MapMyRide+! Distance: 42.2mi, time: 02:35:11, pace: 3:41min/mi, speed: 16.3mi/h.
http://mapmyride.com/workout/1137096633
Back down, and looking back to one of the most adventurous summers I can recall.

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Before cleaning, they are showing signs of wear.

Mountains, in Wales, Corsica and Scotland. Slept in a bivvy bag, a bothy. Burnt 71,000 calories and lost 7lbs (which needed to go).
Today, my body weight is 14St. 5lbs, a drop of 7lbs.
Incidentally, how many calories is each pound of body fat worth?
New mountains are added to my must-climb list:
Beinn Bhan, 896m,
An Rhuadh Stac, 892m,
Benn Arthur, ‘The Cobbler’. 884m.
All Corbetts, often the most interesting mountains.

I am nearly ready for the Hill and Moorland Leader assessment. Currently logged 50 QMDs.

Gairich, 918m.

14°C, falling breeze, run but rain pm hill fog too.
A very boggy approach, especially near the start, by the dam. Gairich has quite a long, gentle lead-in with steep schist rocks near the top. It took me about 5.5 hours round trip, including distractions. Scotch mist disorientated me for a short while, just at the track became indistinct.
Worse was later, without checking, I headed off on the wrong direction. A simple compass check would have prevented a 150m diversion. Embarrassing.

I was not alone on this climb, a German couple, who were not well equipped and turned back before the first steep section. They were probably dispirited by the bog anyway.
Another couple of retired teachers who probably have done all the munros but never kept a list. Some they have climbed 20 times or more. They recommended the Severn Sisters Of Kintail. Severn munros in one day!

I was delayed by that mist and the false turn, but a red car was finally visible next to mine in the dam car park. I thought a flash of headlights was visible, so I waved okay. That was kind of them to wait and check.

Falls of Glomach,

13°C, SW breeze that brought heavy rain later.
Rainy day walk; it’s quite logical to use a wet day to walk low level to waterfall. This one is supposed to be the highest single drop in Scotland.The walk starts after a 6 mile drive up a single-track road. There follows a Glen walk and the waterfall is up a side Glen. The side Glen is steep but to only 150m. This is also the stage where the rain started.
Beforehand, in the valley is a track that is easy walking for about 7km along a Glen that is very attractive. You can admire the clarity of the glacial features, drumlins, nunateks and various moraines.
Then you can look forward to see the most enormous Highland cattle. The adults must weigh over 2 tons, and they had calfs. Admittedly, the calfs were probably 1 year olds. But still, their curiosity was strong, as was my desire to take a wide detour.
Eventually, I got to the falls after climbing over gneiss boulders. Their grip was plenty despite the water everywhere. More frogs too.
On the return, the herd of cattle had become two, but the divisions were easier to find this time.

I have found another mountain to add to the ‘must climb’ list: Benn Bhan, in the Applecross region. It has 4 fantastic looking spurs that loom out of hill fog in an intoxicating way.

Part 2: Maol Chean-dearg, 933m.

Rain cleared before dawn. 12°C, building breeze.
Woke before 6 and fixed breakfast. Re-packing the bag took a while but I made time for sweeping out the bothy.
My sleep in the night was good but had a strange interruption. From deep sleep, my mind was penetrative by a sound. At first like an approaching steam train, all thundering and chuffing. The sound got closer to the bothy, the thundering deeper and deeper. And an unearthly grunting and chuffing. It was a herd of deer, maybe in stampede. I have been spooked by deer before, at Glenfinnan for example. Still wary of them.
Anyway, back to my ‘adventure’. I left the bothy at 8am and got to the bealach by 10. The climb only took an hour and a half. It starts over brittle, sharp quartzite. More quartzite, loose and steep, then to more friendly sandstone. Quartzite seems less likely to be consolidated by organic matter, and much looser on steep slopes. The summit is found after several ledges of pillow like sandstone. It has the best cairn I have seen. It has six shelters arranged like an asterisk.
The summit was a bit cold to spend long there. The strong wind saw to that.I met and chatted to few people on the way down, but I was definitely the first up.
Something caught my eye on the way back to collect my stash. The Mountain opposite. It lifted from the same bealach as MCd. But the curves, textures and shapes in the quartzite captivated me. The way the inclined layers blended into the bealach reminded me of those fascinating forms you can find in comes. I will have to spend a day with this mountain.
On the walk out, I took my time. The loch beneath the day’s summit has beaches. I couldn’t resist washing my feet in it’s pure, clear waters. Lovely.
The day drew to a close with improving skies and stronger wind.

Part 1: Sgurr Rhuadh, 966m.

Bright sun and stiff breeze to start. Ended with rain set-in and building wind. 12C,
I lie alone in a bothy with roaring wind outside. Here’s what I have done:
Sgurr Rhuadh, a fairly remote munro that requires a long walk-in. Thus, I hatched a plan, make the summit from Torridon, and stop in a bothy. Then wake up and climb Maol Cheam Dearg, from there, return to Torridon.
I committed to the approach from the north because I stashed my heavier kit under an overhanging sandstone boulder. So my route had to be an out and back. So far so good.
Despite there being no indication on the map, or the guidebook, there actually is a decent path up the ridge to the summit. I found it on the way down.
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Today’s walk was characterised by sharp, brittle clinking quartzite boulders. They are more slippery than they look. It’s not the quartzite at fault, it’s lichen. Oh, and frogs everywhere. Big ones, tiny ones but all with similar colouring. The colour scheme is the same idea, at some are more black than others. All keen to jump out of my way, all elbows and knees.
Eventually, I made it to the bothy. On the way stood an isolated sentinel stone, bright white with lichen. In that light, the owns in the structure could have been crafted by a 1960’s sculptor. It is far older than that. The bothy is an old crofters house, now owned by the estate and used as a mountain hut by the Mountain Bothy Association.
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Nevertheless, it looks like a good place to make up ghost stories. A few trees have been planted nearby, and as I plodded to towards, I was convinced that they were people by the house.
The place was empty. In good condition outside, even the windows were tidy. Inside was all wood clad, in dark brown. These places are very sparse, Capel  any furniture, not even bunks. You have to choose room and sleep on the floor. I picked upstairs facing the river.
Now to settle in and find how well I have packed.