Earlier this week I was spending a day in the Snowdonia mountain range in the company of a friend of mine called Gary, Betty came along too. We had had a successful trip earlier in the year where we climbed a single peak called Moel Shabod and pictures attest to the snowy conditions. When we planned this latest trip we imagined a warmer day but were not expecting the warmest day of the year- forcasts of 30+ centigrade.
We all set off early in Gary’s car and arrived for breakfast at the dog friendly cafe at the base of Moel Shabod called imaginatively Moel Shabod. Eating sausages we all pondered how the day would pan out. We began the climb by 10am- already the heat was quite intense and we made slow progress up a grassy incline, stopping to take in water, bottles for humans, paddling pool style for dogs as we headed past sheep, wild ponies and assorted bird life. Our destination was Carnedd LLwelyn at 1064 metres(over 3000 ft). Shade was in short supply, I was sporting my new sombrero that I bought at Africa Oye last month but Betty’s command of the keeping cool stakes was more impressive still; whether rolling in the heather or being cast in either mine or Gary’s shadow she seemed tuned to the survivalist attitude that was required in those temperatures. I was heard singing the famous Noel Coward ditti at one point, you will know it, ‘Mad dogs and English men walk out in the midday sun’.
At about 1.30 we reached the summit and had our promised lunch break. The summit was a pretty large plateau and quite lunar like-what with its scattering of boulders paving the area the size of a football pitch. The views were fantastic; 180 degrees south-west to north east we could see out to sea, peninsula’s, islands and fields of wind farms. South was the highest point in Wales- Snowdon and east we could see all the way to England-50 miles plus. I felt it was a good return on our exertions however and wondered how much further we would go this day. We could make out Gary’s car parked in the valley below but we were also teased by seven other peaks nearby that we could see. In the previous weeks we had even had discussions about attempting the Challenge event of this area, the Oggy 8. Eight peaks above 3000feet walked consecutively in one day, we had achieved Oggy 1 and I was knackered. We had discovered that this years challenge, organised appropriately by the mountain rescue service had been cancelled, let me shake the hand of who ever made that decision.
I have enjoyed getting out into the mountains ever since my late teens, now fifty one I hope I have a few more years left of such outings and I am lucky that such amenities are comparatively close by to my Liverpool home- I still have a good deal of discoveries to make of the Snowdonian range. I find it takes a bit of planning and I am glad that I teamed up with friends of late like Gary who make it a joint exercise. Gary has got into the mountain lifestyle later in life and even goes off solo into the hills and wild camps to enjoy the nature vibe, he was spying out such camping spots on this trip. During the ‘depression decades’ I would push myself to remote spots in search of some calm-this is something I find is quite common. Quite often when I go with friends and acquaintances on these trips we talk about the release achieved by such environments, but these conversations about the need for such release can prove problematic. I can recall a trip from my early twenties, to stay with a friend who was then not living far from where we sat on the mountain plateau and doing some outdoor stuff. He had a brother of a friend staying as well and in hushed tones I heard that he was off work due to stress at work. I too had been there, returned to Liverpool after a kind of breakdown, seen my parents GP, been referred for psychotherapy, but was still so confused with the process that I could not share any of these experiences with this young man. It would take me another of these life-times to begin to explain what the experience of depression is. It is partly my experience and the desire to make sense of the lunacy of the life that i have lived all these years that keeps these blogs coming.
Having Betty with me helps to focus on these trips cos she receives such obvious pleasure out of being close to nature, the smells, the sounds. I even thinks she enjoys the buzz that my friends and I get from scrambling up rocks and advising each other of safe passage of said rocks. She is to be seen bouncing up and down amongst us as this process is underway. With her being so small we find ourselves looking through her eyes and marvelling at her bravery as she keeps up with us, only occasionally needing to be scooped up and passed across some insurmountable hurdle.
The fillip of this trip came in the form of lovely wind of between 10 to 30 miles an hour. For the remainder of the walk it joined us as we continued to make our way across three of the Oggy peaks. It was only when we dropped back down into the valley at bout seven o’clock that the stifling heat returned. Today, two days after the walk Ii am aching a bit from my exertions still but my biggest weight I have been carrying is that of guilt. Poor Betty has been limping round like a arthritic mutt since we got back. I think the combination of the extra mileage and rocky floors have taken its tole. Another life lesson learnt from the wilds- ‘Bad Owner!’
We all set off early in Gary’s car and arrived for breakfast at the dog friendly cafe at the base of Moel Shabod called imaginatively Moel Shabod. Eating sausages we all pondered how the day would pan out. We began the climb by 10am- already the heat was quite intense and we made slow progress up a grassy incline, stopping to take in water, bottles for humans, paddling pool style for dogs as we headed past sheep, wild ponies and assorted bird life. Our destination was Carnedd LLwelyn at 1064 metres(over 3000 ft). Shade was in short supply, I was sporting my new sombrero that I bought at Africa Oye last month but Betty’s command of the keeping cool stakes was more impressive still; whether rolling in the heather or being cast in either mine or Gary’s shadow she seemed tuned to the survivalist attitude that was required in those temperatures. I was heard singing the famous Noel Coward ditti at one point, you will know it, ‘Mad dogs and English men walk out in the midday sun’.
At about 1.30 we reached the summit and had our promised lunch break. The summit was a pretty large plateau and quite lunar like-what with its scattering of boulders paving the area the size of a football pitch. The views were fantastic; 180 degrees south-west to north east we could see out to sea, peninsula’s, islands and fields of wind farms. South was the highest point in Wales- Snowdon and east we could see all the way to England-50 miles plus. I felt it was a good return on our exertions however and wondered how much further we would go this day. We could make out Gary’s car parked in the valley below but we were also teased by seven other peaks nearby that we could see. In the previous weeks we had even had discussions about attempting the Challenge event of this area, the Oggy 8. Eight peaks above 3000feet walked consecutively in one day, we had achieved Oggy 1 and I was knackered. We had discovered that this years challenge, organised appropriately by the mountain rescue service had been cancelled, let me shake the hand of who ever made that decision.
I have enjoyed getting out into the mountains ever since my late teens, now fifty one I hope I have a few more years left of such outings and I am lucky that such amenities are comparatively close by to my Liverpool home- I still have a good deal of discoveries to make of the Snowdonian range. I find it takes a bit of planning and I am glad that I teamed up with friends of late like Gary who make it a joint exercise. Gary has got into the mountain lifestyle later in life and even goes off solo into the hills and wild camps to enjoy the nature vibe, he was spying out such camping spots on this trip. During the ‘depression decades’ I would push myself to remote spots in search of some calm-this is something I find is quite common. Quite often when I go with friends and acquaintances on these trips we talk about the release achieved by such environments, but these conversations about the need for such release can prove problematic. I can recall a trip from my early twenties, to stay with a friend who was then not living far from where we sat on the mountain plateau and doing some outdoor stuff. He had a brother of a friend staying as well and in hushed tones I heard that he was off work due to stress at work. I too had been there, returned to Liverpool after a kind of breakdown, seen my parents GP, been referred for psychotherapy, but was still so confused with the process that I could not share any of these experiences with this young man. It would take me another of these life-times to begin to explain what the experience of depression is. It is partly my experience and the desire to make sense of the lunacy of the life that i have lived all these years that keeps these blogs coming.
Having Betty with me helps to focus on these trips cos she receives such obvious pleasure out of being close to nature, the smells, the sounds. I even thinks she enjoys the buzz that my friends and I get from scrambling up rocks and advising each other of safe passage of said rocks. She is to be seen bouncing up and down amongst us as this process is underway. With her being so small we find ourselves looking through her eyes and marvelling at her bravery as she keeps up with us, only occasionally needing to be scooped up and passed across some insurmountable hurdle.
The fillip of this trip came in the form of lovely wind of between 10 to 30 miles an hour. For the remainder of the walk it joined us as we continued to make our way across three of the Oggy peaks. It was only when we dropped back down into the valley at bout seven o’clock that the stifling heat returned. Today, two days after the walk Ii am aching a bit from my exertions still but my biggest weight I have been carrying is that of guilt. Poor Betty has been limping round like a arthritic mutt since we got back. I think the combination of the extra mileage and rocky floors have taken its tole. Another life lesson learnt from the wilds- ‘Bad Owner!’