Off to the hills this afternoon with my walking buddy Rufus. We headed on up to Garreg Lwyd, a gentle hill I usually use as a nice introduction back to hillwalking after a break. It’s an easy slope but the potential is there to go on and on and make a full day. I’ve mentioned before that one day I’m going to walk from there across to Fan Brecheiniog, which can be seen in the distance.
Today, it was misty and windy but not particularly cold. We set off in the clear but quickly climbed into the cloud level. There were the occasional moments of drizzle but it was mainly dry. Very soon, we were on the top of the mountain, as signified by the huge double cairn and the tiny trig point. But the path onwards to Foel Fraith was invisible in the murk. Nevertheless, we headed off in the general direction and after a sweep around in the general direction I knew the path to be in, we picked it up. Shortly afterwards, the mist cleared and we had a good walk up to the second mountain. On the top, we were once again in mist but it was dry and we sat and ate our respective snacks.
On the way back, I followed the path all the way to the top of Garreg Lwyd, once again in the mist. But for some reason, I headed off towards the north rather than west. I followed what I thought was the correct way and it only goes to show that you should never trust your senses when you have no reference points. I felt I knew where I was going and it was only when the mist lifted for a moment that I noticed the workings of the limestone quarry on the north face of Garreg Lwyd on my left (it shouldn’t have been visible, and should have been to my right) that I realised something was wrong. Even then, although I turned back in the right direction, I veered once again in the mist and ended up on the summit of the quarry. Although I realised that there were sheer drops ahead, and had Rufus on the lead, it was still a shock that I hadn’t managed to correct the route deviation.
I checked the route on the phone (I was running an app to track my route) and used that to get back on track and soon after we were descending back to the car park again. Rufus was happy that he’d had a long run out. I was happy to see the car.
Rufus was less happy when he found himself having a shower when we got home, But shortly afterwards, he was flat out on my lap and he didn’t move for two hours.
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