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A Wee Trip to Bonnie Scotland
“You can’t consider yourself a true Mountain God unless you have done some Scottish mountains”. This, or something like it was the pronouncement from the main instructor of my ML course at Plas-y-Brenin last year. There was also the advice to ensure that the Quality Mountain Days (QMDs) that we gathered before the assessment were from a selection of mountain regions, not just North Wales.
With these two edicts in mind and with D wanting to catch up with some of her friends from Dundee we decided our two week holiday this year would be to Scotland. I had originally planned to go up mid week, but since I am such a keen and dedicated worker I moved my holiday so that the client I was working with got the most time from me. So the plan for our two weeks looked something like this:
| Saturday | Home prep and pack |
| Sunday | Drive up to Loch Lomond |
| Monday | Ben Lomond |
| Tuesday | Another mountain |
| Wednesday | Drive to Glencoe |
| Thursday | Mountain in Glencoe |
| Friday | Mountain in Glencoe |
| Saturday | Drive to Glen Nevis |
| Sunday | Ben Nevis |
| Monday | Ring of Steall |
| Tuesday | Flexible – Schiehallion? |
| Wednesday | Flexible – Ben Lawers? |
| Thursday | Drive to Dundee |
| Friday | Dundee |
| Saturday | Drive home |
| Sunday | Home in Oxford to unpack |
So, we joined the Camping and Caravan Club (to get good deals on a couple of campsites), booked campsites at Loch Lomond, Glencoe and Glen Nevis and booked into a hotel in Dundee. The Flexible days in between we decided to wait to see how things went.
Loch Lomond
The drive up on Sunday went well. Good weather and no traffic problems, so at around the predicted 6pm we found ourselves arriving at the Milarrochy Bay campsite on the eastern shores of Loch Lomond. We pitched our tent on a lovely spot overlooking the Loch and all was well with the world as we set up camp. We were even visited by a fox, who had a good peer into the tent and I am sure would have investigated further had I not been in the tent.
There was even a pub in Balmaha which we could reach by a footpath than ran along the shores of Loch Lomond from the campsite.
Ben Lomond
The next morning we drove up to the Forestry Commission car park at Rowaredennan and set off to tackle Ben Lomond.
We seem to have a knack for finding the more interesting / challenging routes up mountains. In this case we set off up the West Highland Way until we got to Tom Beithe, where we headed up the narrow path that led steeply up the hill side towards Ptarmigan.
From Ptarmigan we had a great view of Loch Lomond and the surrounding mountains, including our objective for the next day: Beinn Narnain.
We even got to see three Ptarmigan – on the top of Ptarmigan.
The View back down the Ptarmigan path
From the top of Ptarmigan it was an easy scramble to the summit of Ben Lomond, from where the views were amazing. We would have stayed longer but there were hordes of midges up there. Swarms of the little blighters. So it was a photo of me, a photo of D then we were looking for the way down.
The tourist path is easy to follow and a good route to take down. Taking it up would have been a monotonous slog though.
Anyway, we made it back OK. My first Scottish QMD and my second Munro (I did Ben Nevis the year before last as part of the 3 peaks challenge).
Another pleasant walk to dinner at Balmaha and early to bed.
All the pictures can be found on my Flickr site.
Beinn Narnain and The Cobbler
The next day dawned bright and sunny. After breakfast we packed our gear into the car and drove round to the other side of Loch Lomond and up to Tarbet, where we turned off the A82 and drove the couple of miles to Arrochar, parking in the car park at the head of Loch Long.
From the car park we picked up the forest track that zig zags up to the dam. In accordance with our knack to find the more interesting routes up mountains, we ignored the main path that headed up the valley, but took the faint path that contours to the North East and meets the path that ascends straight up from the road near the foot of Creag an Fhithich. From where the paths meet we climbed straight up through the heather to eventually pick up the track that runs along the ridge towards Cruach nam Miseag.
We followed the obvious path, scrambling up the steep rocky slopes of “The Spearhead” to reach the summit of Bein Narnain. The weather had been deteriorating and as we reached the summit it started to rain. On the summit we met a couple of lads, one of whom was celebrating his 30th birthday.
We followed the summit ridge and then descended to the North West before turning South West towards the Lochan a Chlaidheimh.
From the Lochan it was a relatively simple ascent up a decent set of steps towards the summit of Ben Arthur (the Cobbler). In order to actually stand on the summit some precarious scrambling is needed as you “thread the needle”. I wasn’t sure I was up to the task on a good day. When we got there and the mist closed in, reducing visibility to a few yards, the rain came down and the wind picked up I knew I definitely wasn’t going to attempt it.
Me, close to the summit of the Cobbler. Just to remind you of the date: June 26 2012.
So, we retraced our steps to the Lochan and followed the long valley path back to the zig zags through the forest and ultimately back to the car. Total time: 7.5 hours.
Another Scottish QMD and another Munro.
All photos are on my Flickr site.
At this rate I think I better create additional posts for the rest of the holiday.
Wales – 2 weekends on the trot
PYB
At the beginning of April we were up at our favourite North Wales location, well mine anyway – Plas-y-Brenin. This time it was for a Discover Mountain Biking course. We had a great weekend, and although the main purpose was for D to become more confident off road, I have to admit that I learnt a lot as well, and had a great time.
All my photos from the weekend can be seen on my Flickr site here.
Putting it into Practice
Keen to put our new found mountain biking skills into practice we planned to head back to Wales the following weekend – Easter. The original plan was to travel up on the Thursday night to give us Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday in Wales. However, even with me working from home on the Thursday it was a big ask to get everything together. I therefore rang the campsite to let them know that we would still be going but would be there Friday instead. The campsite, Celyn Brithion , was appreciative but laid back.
Rather than travel up to the Snowdon area again, and face the hordes of tourists tramping along the motorway around the Snowdon summits, I wanted to explore some of the other areas of the National Park. So, I had looked to the South East and found Dinas Mawyddy, complete with a decent summit – Aran Fawddwy.
Friday
Having arrived at the campsite in the early afternoon we went for a short walk to stretch our legs.
The overiding memory of the walk must be: “Sheep”, or, more accurately, “Lambs”. They were everywhere, some of them were obviously very very young, as evidenced by the presence of afterbirth on the track and long remnants of umbilical cords hanging from the lambs.
This short circular route can be seen on Trailzilla.
While research the town of Minllyn we found reference to the Brigands Inn, about a mile down the road. We headed down there for a meal and were very disappointed. D had a burger that was fairly tasteless and there was so much dressing on the salad that the plate was swimming in it and the bun was soaking. I had steak, and despite talking to the waitress about how I wanted it cooked it came back overcooked. Basically the trouble seemed to be that the chef was trying to do too much and be too fancy.
Saturday
Saturday we decided to head out on the mountain bikes, to try to put into practice some of the skills we had learnt the previous weekend at Plas Y Brenin and to build on our new found confidence. I had pored over the maps to find bridleways for us to u se and come up with a circular route from a picnic spot up a side road from the small village of Corris.
We did not get off to a good start as the first part of the route headed off into an area that was closed due to logging. So we headed down the road into Corris and battled up an extraordinarily steep bridleway that left us both wondering if it was all worth it. After another push up a bridleway we made it to a junction of forest trails and it was downhill all the way after that. A mixture of forest trail, farmer’s track and steep twisting singletrack. Excellent fun.
Our route for Saturday can be seen here.
On our way out from the campsite we had spotted a pub just round the corner from the campsite – the Buckley Arms. We decided to give it a go for dinner and had a great time. The staff were all friendly and welcoming, the food was simple but excellent and they had decent beer. I can totally recommend the Buckley Arms.
Sunday
With Aran Fawddwy just up the road I had planned a fairly long mountain day. I had planned to park on the road, near the open access land in Cwm Cywarch. However, once there the opportunities were not as good as I had hoped. Luckily I spotted a sign post indicating that there was parking further up the valley. Amazingly, the farmer had developed a parking on a small piece of his land. Complete with all weather surface and a portaloo he had decided that this was better than tourists blocking his road, ruining his land and generally causing lots of problems by parking all over the road. By adding a collection box the farmer had managed to collect £1,300 over the last year, which was donated to the Welsh Air Ambulance.
Parking there a more obvious and slightly shorter route presented itself to us. We climbed up the stream, leaving the stunning views behind us and headed into the mist. It was soon raining hard with strong winds blowing from the side. Adding in the occasional snow drift and the going became quite hard work.
Our walking route can be seen on Trailzilla.
I’m sure that the views from here are truly stunning in clear weather, in the limited visibility we had in the clouds it looked fairly hairy, particulary on the crossing from Drws Bach to Drysgol.
We had planned to ascend Waun Goch and come down the steep sided valley of Cwm Terwyn. Unfortunately, D twisted her ankle coming down from Drysgol so we cut short our plans and headed down the gentle path, with stunning views back across the valley. The ridge we had walked across was hidden in the thick cloud.
When we got back to the camp site we got changed and headed out for dinner, back to the Buckley Arms Hotel again. It started raining just as we started dinner and continued to rain all evening. It carried on raining all night and by morning it was still raining and blowing a hoolie. Rather than head out to the hills we headed home in the rain, beating the bank holiday traffic.
Result, one day excellent mountain biking and one epic quality mountain day to add toward the ML assessment.
Plas y Brenin Nature Trail and Moel Siabod
At the end of last year we were due to attend the Big Christmas Walk, the weekend before Christmas. Unfortunately a small amount of slush brought Oxfordshire’s roads to a standstill and it took us two hours to get from Oxford to Warwick. When we heard that the A5 in Llanberis was shut due to snow we rang Plas y Brenin to learn that it was still snowing and the snow plough had already been past twice. They advised us that our money could be saved and put toward another course, so we took this option rather than risking the journey. We later found out that out of 120 planned attendees only 60 made it and the staff spent all weekend trying to dig cars out of the car park.
So, the money was put towards another course and we chose the Nature Trail weekend. We are both interested in the environment and I thought that the extra information would be a useful addition to the stuff I’m learning for the ML. We both had Friday off work so headed up to Wales, setting off just before lunch. At Banbury I realised that I only had one test strip for the whole weekend, so instead of spending Friday afternoon relaxing at the Brenin, we spent it dashing from the GP surgery in Betws to the Asda pharmacy in Llandudno, before finally reaching the Brenin around 7pm.
We had dinner and a couple of pints of Boot Liquor in the bar before heading off to bed.
Saturday
Saturday morning we met in the conference room for the normal briefing from the duty instructor before being introduced to our instructor (Louise Beetlestone) and the other three delegates on the course. Along the way I happened to bump into Stu and Steve, two of the instructors from the ML course.
Of the other delegates Steve wanted to brush up on his geology knowledge for his IML assessment and his wife Hazel was along for the weekend holiday. Debs was there to see more plants while her other half was doing his 2 star kayaking with Spike.
After the introductions we grabbed our packs and boots and headed out in a minibus to the minor roads north of Dinorwic and the edge of the National Park. Louise parked the minibus and we headed up the track towards Carnedd y Filliast. The route took us along the ridge to Mynydd Perfedd and then across a narrow ridge, Bwlch y Marchlyn to Elidir Fawr. From there we descended the scree slope towards Elidir Fach and then back to the road and thus back to the van.
Along the way Louise talked about the geology of the area, the different ages of rock and showed us the anticline at Marchlyn Bach. We also identified numerous plants and several birds including the Wheatear (previously named the White Arse before it was changed by the Victorians), the Skylark, the Raven and Meadow Pipit.
On the way back to the Brenin we stopped off at the bus stop car park to visit the viewing point for the Llanberis slate quarries. They are huge! And amazing to see how structures have been built on the piles of waste slate.
Saturday Evening
We made it back to the Brenin in time for tea and cakes and then spent some time in one of the class rooms talking more about geology and attempting to identify some of the plants and lichens we had encountered. My photos from both days are shown on my Flickr site. I have tried to identify all the plants but would welcome any comments on the ones I haven’t identified or if you think I have made a mistake with any of them.
After dinner we attended a talk by Ollie about some of the expeditions to Chile and Greenland he has undertaken in recent years. The photos were very good and most of the talk was very interesting but it didn’t flow very well and Ollie was prone to mumble quite a bit as he talked to the screen rather than the audience, so some parts were difficult to follow.
Sunday
Sunday morning we met at 9.15 under the canopy before heading out, in a car this time, to Ogwen Cottage. From the car park we headed up towards Cwm Idwal, skirting to the east of Llyn Idwal and passing under the (in)famous Idwal slabs. We climbed towards Twll Du (Devils Kitchen) and, crossing the stream we headed up a narrow “Sheep track” to the right hand side. It was indeed narrow in some places, with quite a lot of exposure. I don’t think I would have had the confidence to go that way by myself, although now I know it is possible to get out on to the ridge I might try it again in future.
The path led us underneath the “Curtain” and the water falling from it gave us our own localised rain storm. Apparently this freezes in the winter and makes for a major ice climb. After a bit of a scramble the gulley opened out and we made it on to the top.
Crossing the stream that feeds into Twll Du we examined the rock for pillow lava and ripples before heading down the path on the other side of Twll Du and following the footpath through the moraine around the western edge of Llyn Idwal. There was a brief detour to look down the Nant Ffrancon valley. Louise pointed out a roche montanne and we all took ages to spot it, picking our own features in the valley before being directed to the correct one. (A discussion of the gacial features of Cwm Idwal and Nant Ffrancon can be found here).
Then it was time to head back to the car via a whetstone quarry, before heading back to the Brenin. We had a debrief over much needed tea and cakes before heading our separate ways.
Sunday Night
Rather than heading home we went a few miles down the road to Dol Gam campsite. It being a bank holiday weekend we were planning to spend Monday in Snowdonia as well. I had tried to get us a room at the Brenin Sunday night but they were full. So we went down to the campsite and tried out our new tent – a Terra Nova Superlite Quasar.
We had dinner, pizza and beer, in the cafe just up the road from the camp site. A great little place with copies of Climber magazine from the 1960s and 70s. Interesting to see that although kit technology has moved on the issues, particularly surrounding litter in the mountains, have not.
We spent a very comfortable night in the tent, with lots of room for both of us and woke refreshed on Monday morning, although as soon as we stepped out of the tent the midges attacked us in swarms and encouraged us to leave the campsite asap.
Moel Siabod
We drove back the Brenin to check the weather forecast and since it advised that the rain of the morning would clear by the afternoon we decided to have a go at Moel Siabod. We drove back towards the campsite and left the car in a hotel car park – £3 a day isn’t bad for someone to keep an eye on it for you.
We headed down the road and turned right down a minor side road and right again up a track. A well signed path led us around a farm and on to moorland. Crossing into open access land we passed a reservoir and headed up into some old mine workings. We passed an old quarry that is now filled with water. Nothing particularly strange about that as there are several of these across the Snowdonia National Park, but this one looked really deep. We could see the rock faces just dropping away under the water with no sign of the bottom.
Walking on above the quarry we followed the path as it contoured around the lower slopes of Moel Siabod, above the streams that flow into Llyn y Foel. Daear Ddu, the south-eastern ridge sticks out from the summit with a sheer face and gulley running up the side. As we climbed away from the Llyn we had a choice of heading to the ridge or following the gulley. We chose the gulley and slowly worked our way up the scree covered slope, which seemed to get steeper and steeper as we neared the summit. Finally an easy scramble up some wet rocks bought us out onto the summit, just a few meters east of the trig point.
After admiring the view we headed down the North Eastern slope, aiming for Plas y Brenin and soon picked up the path that led us into the wood and back to the car.
ML (Summer) Training Day Two – Mountain Day
Day 2, Sunday, was to be a day in the mountains. An opportunity to practice the pacing and navigation that we did yesterday, but also to experience some steep ground – to realise what the limit of expectation is for the ML assessment. Our objective for the day was Y Lliwedd (“err clue-eth”). The minibus dropped of us off at Pen – y – Pass and we split into our two groups. Steve paired me up with Joe and got us to set the first objective of the day. We finally settled on a bend in the path where the map showed a wall coming in from our right and off we set.
I managed to count the correct number of paces to our first tick off feature – the path coming in from the right, which led down from the Horns. Unfortunately, at that point I realised that my stopwatch had not started so I had no idea how long we had been walking for, so there was no hope of timing 12.5 minutes to our objective. Luckily, more by luck than judgement, we made it to where we thought we were aiming for, even though there was no wall visible.
Another pair took over and led us to the fork in the path, just before the Miner’s path reaches Lyn Lydaw. From there another pair took us to the point where we to leave the path and really start to head up to the ridge.
A map can be seen here.
We had barely made it a third of the way up the ridge when we were passed by Stu’s party coming down the ridge.
We headed up from our lunch stop to scramble up the rock. Apparently its a grade 1 scramble, but with huge exposure on the left and the slope dropping off to the right it felt much worse. It certainly made me slow down and think about the approach as well as taking things more steadily. Maybe it was just my lack of experience as I don’t think any of the other guys had any trouble.
We worked hard from then on to get up on to the ridge and then pushed on towards the summit. I must admit to finding it hard going in the heat getting up the steep rocky slopes to the top of Y Lliwedd and felt bad for slowing the rest of the team up.
But then it really was down hill all the way back to the car park and we made it bang on time. Unfortunately the other team had been there for a while and had even found time for an ice cream.
ML (Summer) Training Day One – Micro Nav
Arrival
With the course starting on Saturday morning I had taken the Friday off work to give me time to pack and drive up there in reasonable time. Even with a load of faffing I was still packed by about 11.30am and so set off to North Wales at a steady pace. Typically, it was only as I was driving through Llangollen that I realised that I had not packed the summer walking shirts that I had been planning to take with me. Nor had I packed any sun cream or insect repellant. A quick stop at Cotswold Outdoor in Betwys – y – Coed remedied all three of those omissions and I was quickly on my way again, arriving at the Brenin around 4.30pm.
The room would not be ready until around 8pm so I had a couple of hours to kill. Taking advantage of the glorious weather I wandered across the bridge out the back of the Brenin and up the path leading towards Moel Siabod.
I got back to the car about 5.30pm. So, still having a couple of hours to kill I went to the bar, where I sampled a pint of each of the three bitters and enjoyed a great bar meal of pie and chips.
Suitably fed and watered I headed to reception to sign in and collect my key. The Brenin have finally taken a step into the 21st century and now have plastic key cards rather than the heavy key fob we had had on the winter walking course. As I was expecting, the room was clean and tidy with two single beds and a large bathroom. Being the first in the room I bagged the bed furthest from the door and nearest the window and unpacked some of my kit.
It was quite late in the evening and I had gone to bed when my room mate arrived. Jim had arrived by train at Llandudno Junction and been picked up, along with several others, by one of the Pyb mini buses. We introduced ourselves and had a quick chat before turning in for the night.
Introductions
Saturday morning saw the first of many great meals at the Brenin. I was very good and refrained from having a cooked breakfast each day – sticking instead to cereal.
After breakfast there was an introductory welcome talk from the duty manager who then sent us to the relevant rooms under the guidance of our instructor for the week – SM. We 11 delegates sat ourselves around the table with SM at the head. There then followed the normal training course staple of “Who are you and why are you here?”. To which the answers were “to help run DofE” or “to develop personal skills”, mainly.
SM then split the elevel of us into two groups. One group of six guys would be looked after by another instructor – Steve, while SM would take the remaining guy and the four girls.
We had a chat about the weather, a chance to collect some kit and then we headed out in our respective groups for some micro nav.
Micro Nav
The day started with some pacing. We all walked along and counted the paces required to cover 100m. I came out at 63, which was only slightly different from the 66 I did in the snow last year.
We then practiced map memory by looking at the map and deciding what features we might see as we walked a specific route and then ticking off those features as we actually walked the route.
These exercises led us through the woods at the back of the Brenin to the youth hostel in Capel Curig. From there we headed up towards Clogwyn Mawr and Nant y Geuallt, where we looked at contours and re-entrants before practicing walking bearings for short distances by placing objects in the area and getting someone else to retrieve them, given only the bearing and the distance.
Following this game our instructor, Steve, set us objectives. In pairs we were to navigate the rest of the group to the given objectives. From the starting point it was up to small spur, then on to a stream source and then pairs were given their own objectives before heading back to the Australia contour.
Click here for the map.
Here there was short break to discuss lichens (crustacose, foliose and fruticose), heathers (ling, bell and ?), before heading off to one final objective (Hill 337) and an (almost) final debrief from Steve. On the path back to the Brenin we passed through some old woodland at the base of Clogwyn Mawr and spotted some wood sorrell. Although this is edible we refrained from trying any of this as it was right on the path used by dog walkers. (A week later I was in Wytham Woods near Oxford – from where dogs are banned – and I found some more wood sorrell, which I did taste).
Carl Sprake 