That Was The Weekend That Wasn’t

Earlier in the year we booked to attend the Big Winter Walk at Plas y Brenin, near Capel Curig. The Brenin is the National Mountain Center, home of the Mountain Leader Training Association, and is where we spent a week in January this year doing a Welsh Winter Walking week.

The Big Winter Walk promised a weekend of walks and a Christmas meal on Saturday night, as well as bed and breakfast for a very reasonable rate. There would be several walks on offer each day and me and Denise were planning to go off and do our own thing on Saturday and then get together and perhaps do the same walk on Sunday.

So, we spent this morning packing our gear and left home at about 11.30am. By 2pm we had just reached Banbury and were crawling along at less than 20mph. The light dusting of snow in Oxfordshire had caused a couple of accidents. The weather forecasts and news reports suggested that the weather was going to get worse as we got further North. One report said that the road through Llanberis was shut by snow.

We rang the Brenin and they reported that the A5 had been snow ploughed a couple of times but that it was still snowing and they were digging people out of the car park. Faced with the prospect of worsening weather traffic conditions and having to negotiate an icy and snowy A5 in the dark, we made the difficult decision to cancel our plans.

Our logical, sensible minds reassured us that this was the best decision. Better to be safe and well in Oxford than injured in a road accident in North Wales, or stuck in a snow bound car for several hours. The child in us (well in me anyway) had a bit of a strop and a sulk at having to turn round and miss our planned weekend away. Its hard to think about a snowbound road when the road I am driving down is clear, dry and bathed in sunshine.

So, rather than enjoying snow capped peaks in Snowdonia this weekend, we might get out for another stretch of the D’Arcy Dalton Way. On the plus side, the really nice people at Plas y Brenin have promised that rather than sticking to their terms and conditions, (which presumably would mean that we would lose all our money by cancelling at such short notice) they will let us (and the others who decided to cancel due to the bad weather) use the money on any course from the 2011 brochure, so we have not lost out.