Last week I got a call from George, who was looking for a bit of help in working towards his Summer Mountain Leader award. I first met him about two and a half years ago when I was leading a wilderness expedition in the Scottish Highlands (sorry, I hadn’t started the blog back then) and George was a member of the group. Since then, he’s gone on to study outdoor education at college and is now working at an outdoor centre on the Isle of White, but is keen to get back into the hills properly and develop his leadership skills for the mountain environment.
We got together last week, over a coffee, to chat through the process, the award syllabus, the expectations and some general advice. However, we also decided that it would be good to get out into the hills for a day to put things into practice. Today was our day.
We headed into Cwm Maen Gwynedd on the eastern side of the Berwyns and did an anticlockwise loop of the horseshoe, taking in the tops of Mynydd Tarw, Foel Wen, Tomle, Cadair Berwyn, Moel Sych and Godor before dropping back down to the car.
The climb up Mynydd Tarw felt like a long slog after the excesses of Christmas, but was pleasant enough and we stopped for first lunch in the shelter of the cairn at the top. Our traverse across the top of the ridge towards Tomle was very wet underfoot (as it was the last time I was here), and the cloud started to close in making the navigational side of things more important – great practice for George. Once we hit the top of the main Berwyn ridge, heading south to Cadair Berwyn, we were exposed to some strong winds and driving rain that put pay to any conversation for a while.
After a stop for second lunch in the shelter to the south of Cadair Berwyn, we moved on to Moel Sych before dropping down to the east towards Llyn Lluncaws, where our eyes played tricks on us. It took us both a couple of minutes to realise that what we thought was a cloudy skyline was actually the edge of the lake. After picking up a fence line to use as a handrail, we had to keep concentrating as a number of additional fences have clearly been erected since the map was last updated, and could easily have been misleading.
My memories my last visit to the top of Godor have haunted me for about six years now. I was on my own that day, and fell into an peat bog up to my chest! I still didn’t feel any solid ground with my feet and only stopped sinking because a managed to reach solid ground with my arms. Today’s visit passed without incident, and we gradually made our way back down out of the cloud to find the car by about 4pm.
It’s always great to spend a day in the hills. The weather could have been better, but the company made up for it. Thanks George!
