A tale of over-ambition, wild camping and not-climbing.
Something about this trip led me to question my motivations
for being in the hills, how and why I set my objectives and how I can plan
better in the future. Sat at the wild camp on Saturday night gave me a long and
peaceful time to reflect on the day’s adventures which I wouldn’t otherwise get
– normally it’s back in the car and a long, exhausting drive home. This time it
was watching the sun go down, having a bit of rum, exploring the nearby
moraines and checking out potential climbs. And a lot of sitting and chatting.
In a nutshell the plan for the weekend was; a two day walk
with a wild camp that included all 6 Hewitts around Cadair Idris plus climb
Table Direct and the Crfwry Arete. That sounds pretty straightforward on paper.
In real life it was spectacularly over-ambitious. Just
setting out with enough gear for a soggy weekend at the beginning of April
including a tent, dry clothes, food, a rack of gear, ropes and a big camera was
an effort. We must have been carrying 12-15kg each. In itself that’s not a
problem for a long day, but battling against wind and rain, and then planning
how to do a massive climb the next morning and still retrieve all our gear was
where my planning and over-ambition began to fall apart.
I blame the Welsh 3000s.
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| Me on the Welsh 3000s last 2015 |
Let me explain. And please excuse the rambling intro. If you’re
just after the walk report you might want to skip ahead a bit.
Before I did the Welsh 3000s my plans for mountain days were,
in retrospect, always reasonably modest and never really pushed me to my
limits. They were always fun, but I suppose in some way always restricted.
When I did the Welsh 3000s last year, it flipped a switch in
my brain, a switch that used to keep my ideas in check and say ‘Nah, that’s
probably a long enough day’ after more than a handful of peaks. But once the
3000s was done, and not only done within a day but actually in a really good
time, I realised I could achieve far more in a long day out than I had ever
thought possible. I could ramp up my endurance and push my body and mind to
take on bigger, better and longer days out.
Ever since then my plans have become more and more
ambitious. I no longer think anything of planning a 15 mile mountain day
covering huge amounts of ascent because I know not only that I can do it but
that I actually find it incredibly enjoyable. It’s a weird kind of enjoyment.
You probably know what I mean. That kind of suffering-come-fun where the
exhaustion is only evidence of how much you’ve enjoyed the day out.
So here’s how it all panned out. Oh and by the way the
boring factual bits I don’t enjoy reading back myself so I’ve trimmed them
down. Sorry if you’re a detail nut!
7am leave Bristol with Joe & Matt > drive to Cadair
Idris through a lot of rain > brakes begin making unpleasant burning smells
coming over the mountain pass to Machynlleth > stop braking so much and hope
for the best > park at the little campsite 100m to the west of the visitor
centre because you can’t park in the car park overnight (only a fiver btw so
worth doing) > set off up the Minfordd path in the lots and lots of rain.
Heavy clouds burdened with endless volumes of traditional
Welsh rain skirted the summits around the cwm of Idris obscuring any chance of
a view of the peaks. We passed by a miserable and sodden team of kids from a
cadets group and trekked up and around to the summit of Craig Cwm Amarch.
I should say something here about objectives. The plan was
to do all the Hewitts around Idris. Why? Good question. You see it was a
fortunate coming together of people and objectives that resulted in the three
of us doing this route together. I’m working towards my Mountain Leader and in
my consolidation period so I’m making sure as many of my days out as possible
count as QMDs (Quality Mountain Days). Joe loves being in the mountains and
climbing, so any combination of those works for him (plus he’s going to do his
ML as well), and Matt had joined us because he’s trying to do all the Welsh
Hewitts.
Objective setting is a funny thing. I wouldn’t consider
myself a hill bagger. But I’ve got nothing against hill bagging. I just tend to
set myself objectives that I think will be fun and hopefully push me really
hard and involve some sort of exposure to a manageable danger. I also like
exploring new places, so doing something like trying to climb all the Welsh
Hewitts seems like a good way to do that. Either way, our plans all coincided
beautifully. Although, I think Matt may have been happier if we’d done all the
Hewitts in one long day rather than carrying everything in the world with us
for two days!
From Craig Cwm Amarch we hauled our sodden loads across the
windswept col towards Penygadair, but swung westwards to join the Minfordd path
again heading down towards the cross-roads in the path below Cyfrwy.
At the cross road we continued west, and the weather began
to ease off a bit which was amazing, as we were in that unpleasant quandary of
too-hot-take-off-layer-too-wet-put-on-layer-too-sweaty-take-off-layer-too-cold-moan-a-bit
common on days involving big loads and bad weather when it’s not really cold or
warm.
The western mountains of Craig-las and Craig-y-llyn
seemingly had no visitors that day. To save our legs and backs we stashed our
gear behind some massive craggy cairns on the eastern spur of Craig-las and
unhindered walked quickly to the summits of each. These small mountains are
steep and grassy and obviously don’t get much traffic as the hillsides seemed
almost untouched. When the cloud parted to give brief moments of views from the
summits, the aspects were amazing. Particularly from Craig-y-llyn where the
peak drops sharply from the summit to the north and the view is uninterrupted
to Barmouth and across the inlet from the sea. I would hazard a guess that on a
better day this would be a breath-taking viewpoint.
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| View from the summit of Craig-y-llyn |
From there it was trudging down, contour around, skirt
Craig-las and pick up the gear. The little group of cadets had made it to the
crossroads by this point and were heading down to Llyn-y-gader; the lake at the
foot of Penygadair which was our planned wild camp as well. The path there was
boggy from the heavy rainfall throughout the day, so with damp feet and tired
legs we arrived at the lake.
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| Walking to the lake - Crfrwy and Penygadair looming on the right and ahead |
This has to be one of the finest wild camping spots there
is. The broad lake nestles against the moraine at the bottom of the steep escarpments
of Penygadair and Crfrwy and the ground opens out to the north, leaving a few
flat spots ideal for setting up camp, separated from the rest of the lake by
huge piles of moraine – meaning camp spots are separate from each other and you
might not even know someone else was staying at the same lake as you!
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| Llyn-y-gader lake and Penygadair escarpment with the Pony path visible in the scree to the left |
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| Our camp below Crfrwy Arete |
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| Boiling up some food by Llyn-y-gader |
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| Tents set up below Crfrwy Arete |
That was a good night’s sleep. Despite some gusty winds the
camp spot was pretty well protected from the southerly winds by the peaks to
our backs. After tea, coffee and food camp was quickly disbanded, and not a
mark remained to show we had ever been there – the way wild camping should be.
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| Me with all of the clothes on brewing up for breakfast |
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| View of Llyn-y-gader from the base of Table Direct |
I think it was at this point that my plans began to unravel
in their over-ambition.
The previous evening we had come to realise how far the lake
was from the Minfordd path and the col between Crfrwy and Craig-las. And my
plan had been to climb the Crfrwy arête, descend via the Minfordd path, pick up
the kit then walk back around to the summit of Penygadair and on to Mynydd
Moel. We amended the plan to descend back to the lake from the summit of
Penygadair via the steep and scree filled Pony path (and possibly re-ascend
that with our kit if it wasn’t too serious). Even then though, I think the
objectives for day two were too onerous. No matter which way you look at it,
there was going to be a lot of back-and-forth, re-ascent and faff.
Regardless, we went to climb the arête anyway, and hoped we’d
figure the rest out after.
As it turned out the route up Table Direct was far too
sodden from Saturday’s torrents to be in a climbable condition. So after an
hour or so of playing about up the rubble fields we picked up our kit and began
trekking back along a slightly higher path towards the Minfordd path. About two
thirds of the way along we spotted a weakening in the buttresses to our left, a
little valley and spur that looked like a valuable shortcut towards the summit
of Crfrwy. So we headed up that, and through thick cloud and gusty winds made
our way to the summit of Crfrwy.
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| From the col between Crfrwy and Penygadair looking down on Llyn -y-gader |
From the summit and along the way to Penygadair we caught
glimpses of the climb we would have taken and it looks amazing. I’m desperate
to get back there on a dry day and nail that climb. But probably in a day
without the wild camp to avoid all the carrying!
The summit of Penygadair still clung to a lot of its winter
coat, with patches of snow an ice littered across the summit. We slipped into
the summit hut for some food and chatted with the handful of other groups in
there. We met a group of ladies from Merthyr Tydfil who were on a challenge to
climb Snowdon, Cadair Idris and Pen y Fan in 24hrs – a big set of objectives
for such a large group. I hope they made it!
From there the walk to Mynydd Moel was pretty easy; a long,
gentle slope and views of some epic buttresses to the north which looked like
they’d have some amazing climbs on. We left our gear once again at the fence
line and walked easily to the summit, from where we could see almost all of the
summits we’d walked that weekend.
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| From Mynydd Moel; to the left is Craig Cwm Amarch, centre is Penygadair, to the right Crfrwy and to the left is Craig-las |
Down the fence path > long trudge > terrible path >
tired legs > coffee at the visitor centre > back to car > drove home
with windows open because we smelled.
Lessons learned:
- 1. Modify objectives to avoid carrying everything
in the world ever
- 2. Maybe don’t take a big SLR camera on every trip
- 3. Get brakes checked on car
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