It’s been a rum old week, with good stuff and bad stuff going on which I’m not really ready to write about yet. As often is the case, when I need to get away from it all, I seek out the hills. We set off with a hint of sun and blue sky and drove towards the Brecon Beacons hoping it would clear up into a nice day. It did, and before too long we were parked at the foot of Fan Nedd.
There is an early stile to negotiate and in the past, Rufus takes it in his stride – literally on many occasions. But since his knee op, he hasn’t done a stile so I was keen to get to it before he did. The race was on and, of course, Rufus was winning. I shouted to him to stop but before I could do anything… he sneaked through the gap in the fence that someone had thoughtfully made since the last time we’d been here.
It’s out first proper hill this year so I took it slowly, hoping that Rufus would do the same. Despite 3 miles yesterday, he was off and bounding around like a small black lamb. I was trying to keep my pace even and slow, well that’s my excuse anyway. Ahead, cloud obscured the cairn at the top and as we climbed, the snow got thicker and covered more ground until just below the summit I was walking on frozen snow that gave now and again, sending me ankle deep into it. Rufus, with less weight and four paws, sailed across the top.
As usual, he was waiting for me at the top, trying not to show his boredom at having to put up with my poor fitness. The fact I am wearing the back pack that carries supplies for both of us is not, apparently, a factor. I am slow and that’s an end to it. At the top, the wind was blowing and the snow was everywhere. The cairn was covered in marks where the snow had been blown by the wind and had frozen. After a brief stop – it was too cold just to stand around – we continued south towards the trig point.
Rufus ranged far and wide and with his coat on he didn’t seem too bothered by the wind. I was nice and warm too. It was great to be on a mountain again and although the view appeared and disappeared at the whim of the clouds, the sun was out quite often and it was pleasant walking. Once again, I was late to the trig point and Rufus decided to reinforce the point by trotting back towards me after he’d reached it. Beyond the trig point, the ground starts to slope away slightly but there is a good path until the southernmost cairn, at which point the slope increases and the ground gets very difficult, with deep tufts of thick grass. Under the covering of snow, these would have been treacherous to ankles. So with little more than a couple of breaths rest, and a small treat for Rufus, we headed back to the summit cairn.
Coming down Fan Nedd is always an adventure. I’ve slipped and fallen before now, and worse, slipped and strained leg muscles. So I was careful in the slippery snow. But eventually we made it back to the car and the welcome shelter from the wind, which had battered its way through our layered defences and was chilling us.
Back home, amidst the snoring of a content hound lying across my lap, I noticed that on Feb 14th last year we had climbed Pen y Fan in thick snow and poor visibility.
franticsmurf 