February 5th
Off I went on another hillwalking adventure, this time to Brecon Beacon trails in Wales. Last time I was in Wales I learned that waterproof clothing is not ‘Snowdonia’ proof so I figured that I would invest in a pair of ski gloves for this trip and boy did they come in handy.
Arriving somewhat late on Friday night, we celebrated Josh’s birthday once we were at the cabin with cake. Saturday I went with Danielle’s group to go on a medium level trail. It was amazing, the trail we went on started with us walking in a snow covered forest and it was continuously snowing. At one point, Matt was testing out a frozen pond that we stumbled upon to see if it could hold his weight; I just looked at it- it appeared to be frozen- and I penguin-ed across the ice heads first. I don’t know if the others were expecting this from me, but everyone was laughing. Our snow adventures didn’t stop there as Matt declared war by starting a snowball fight, which proved rather difficult as the snow was very powdery and refused to compact. Our arsenal turned into a mass of fluffy white confetti as soon as the snow left our gloves. I have always found that snow has a magical quality of bringing out the inner ten year old selves that we all hold.
Then we got to a clearing were we began by crossing a somewhat frozen river. After walking for a while in the hills we came to a sight that looked as if it was from Lord of the Rings or Narnia. Looking around everything was white. Surroundings blended into each other that it was hard to distinguish features to develop a sense of direction. The scenery was so vast and barren with only snow to be seen. We found ourselves surrounded by this immense setting of white as we made it to what seemed to be a cliff-like edge amongst the snow- the landscape was enchanting.
The wind started to pick up and our group found ourselves walking with our gloves in front of our faces to block the pelting snow. Alex was very popular on the trip as he came prepared with a whole box of tissues. I tried to take my hands out of my gloves under only two circumstances: 1) to take a picture and 2) to grab a tissue from my pocket- and with freezing temperatures this unfortunately became quite often. We soon found ourselves whited out of our path and spent a great deal of time wandering around to find it. Eventually we stumbled upon an abandoned weir which had frozen solid. Nearby the weir, there were the remains of a structure covered with graffiti which the group attempted to take shelter in for a quick snack break. My hands were so cold though that I didn’t bother to take the risk of taking off my gloves to have a snack. During this time, Matt discovered that his water bottle had a good few inches of ice that had formed inside since we began our walk. It didn’t take too long till everyone decided it was best to continue our trek because we needed to keep moving to keep warm. We wandered for a few hours in this blizzard-y like conditions.
Now a thing that people often do in England is ask you “are you alright?” instead of the American way of “how are you?”; well as the walk progressed in this frozen state I found my response to that question had gradually transformed into a short “sure” as a response because in reality I really didn’t want to assess how I was at that time. Alex let me borrow his hand warmer for a few minutes, but I guess my hands were so cold that even when holding it I barely could feel the warmth that was being produced. Eventually I gave up on taking my hands out of my gloves, mainly because the cold was outweighing the benefit of using a tissue, as well as for the fact that all of my tissues were now frozen.
Finally Danielle led us to find our way out of the frozen tundra. We walked on a path that had a surprising amount of ice under the thin covering of snow. Next thing we know everyone was falling and slipping all over the place, luckily during the walk I seemed to not really fall at all. It was until at one point on the path where I was walking side by side with Alex and Matt that I finally hit a patch that caused all limbs to be flailing about, and next thing I know I accidentally took out Matt in I suppose a slide tackle manner at his shins. Whoops!!!
This sight of flailing limbs and thuds of people hitting the ground became quite a common occurrence for the remainder of the walk. Luckily we were all able to laugh about it as we continuously checked our traction with the ground before committing to our next step. Somehow we made it to the pub where we were able to join Rachel’s group that had made it there earlier. Immediately our group put in orders at the bar for hot chocolates, teas, and coffees. It was neat at the pub because there were local men discussing over I believe a rugby match in Welsh, which I haven’t really heard before.
Soon enough we all were herded into the minibus and began our hour or so journey back to the cabin before it got too dark. Once we made it back, people began queuing for the showers (in which there were three possible showers total for the girls). While waiting for my turn I went to my bunk room where there were 4 or 5 people huddled around the one floor heater playing gin rummy in the dark. The heater produced an orange glow so it worked as both a heater and lamp. I joined in a round and it soon became my turn for the showers. After spending a day in the cold, nothing is more rewarding than a nice hot shower. After dinner we watched ‘A Bugs Life’ till midnight.
It was quite a full and rewarding day.
On Sunday, the walk was far tamer than it was the day before as it was no longer windy nor snowing, though our walk once again carpeted with a thick layer of snow casting the spell of winter’s magic. The snow had dampened a little overnight which made it perfect for compacting it into snowballs. A good portion of the walk consisted of frozen lumps flying through the air whooshing past our heads in a massive snowball fight.
There was a good stretch of our walk that we had involving bog where we tried hopping from grass clump to shrub to grass clump, hoping that the snow wasn’t being misleading with the possibility that our feet could end up sinking mid-calf into slushy like mud. We crossed rivers and continued our trail next to a barb wired fence which I used for support in some cases when trying to cross over semi frozen puddles. At one point one of the barbs hooked onto one of my gloves creating a small hole which made me quite thankful that I was wearing gloves and that wasn’t my hand. Nearing the end of our walk we chowed down on our lunches at a lodge like café place. Once again we had made it all in one piece and huddled into our respective vans to begin our journey to a nearby Witherspoons for dinner which was on route home. I thought the car ride would be 5 hours or so but was pleasantly surprised that I was thinking in American standards for road trips and realistically the car trip back was only three hours.
Wales once again provided adventurous walks that will live on as humorous and fantastic vivid memories.
No comments:
Post a Comment