Hey guys. It's been a while.
Just a note if you're reading this on a laptop, the layout bye the photos is a bit weird but its the only way to structure it to have the mobile version looking tidy and I'm guessing most of you lovely people have your faces in your phone all day.....reading my blogs of course.
I've not done much over the past few weeks that's been worth blogging about and well because this laptop is a pile of excrement I can never be bothered to load it up and start writing.
As it's been a while since I wrote something I thought I'd grin and bare it, as well as I went on my first hiking weekend in almost a year. It's been too long! God damn injury!!!!!
So I had planned to go for this weekend hike since about February. As always anyone can invite themselves to come, either with me if I have the space or their own way.
The trip started Friday night really, I had everything on my bed ready to be packed up. Had my spares for Tom that was coming with me as he's here from Canada so most of his outdoor stuff was back in "Canadia".
Saturday morning I packed the gear into my car with the help of two mates from Wales that had stayed over after going to the Muse gig the night before. So while my gear, mostly stuff I had yet to use was waiting patiently in the car. I had to go to work.
6pm hit and I headed out from work and met Tom near Euston station.
We were Wales bound. We had one stop to make on the way. We had one more meal. We stopped at a service station not far from Oxford. It was quite difficult to choose what we wanted actually. Mainly because if we chose the wrong thing, a need for a shit would not be welcomed in the hills of the Breacon Beacons.
We arrived at the beginning of the trek at around 11pm and just decided to sleep in the car. It was too dark and we knew there was no decent camping space in close distance.
We woke at around 8am and had everything ready by 9. We were on the way. https://www.facebook.com/events/2005857532973548/
The above link was the event that was planned. In short, we walk from point A to point B on Sunday then on Monday circle back to point A which is where the car was.
These photos were taken about 20-30 minutes into the hike. Along Craig y Fan Ddu.
We stopped a few times to take some photos, and just really takk in the scenery. I have to say, it was no North Wales but it was still very beautiful. This was the first hike I had done in so many months I just felt home again. The fresh air, the green rolling hills and quite surprisingly, blue skies, with this weird yellow ball that radiated heat, I'll let you know when I find out what it was.
We hit our second ascent since the beginning of the hike when we had to head up Cribyn after just being on Pen y Big. Now this wasn't a difficult ascent as such but I was pretty sweaty when I got to the top, but like always when I find it tough to head up a part of a hike I put my head down and just go for it, I get that sense of achievement and just that moment where I tell myself this is what I love doing. So do it! "insert video of Shia Lebeouf"
The photo of Tom really into his camera and the photo of me being self obsessed was on the top of Cribyn. One thing is important to take from these two photos. SEAHAWKS REPRESENT!!!!
We then headed along the Breacon way route up Cribyn and eventually up Pen y Fan which is the tallest mountain in South Wales at 886 meters. Which Tom mentioned that back in Canada that would be the height he would ski down after starting at higher than 2000 meters. Thanks Tom.
Here is one of my favorite photo of the hike. It is a view of Pen y Big from the Ascent up Cribyn.
When we got to Pen y Fan, it was full of people. I was expecting a few people of course but there was literally a queue of people wanting a photo of the pile of rocks saying Pen y Fan 886 meters. Now I always expect a bunch of people fighting for a photo on a peak, I've seen it plenty of times on Snowdon but this was like a queue to order a coffee in Costa or something. Me and Tom walked along the top of Pen y Fan and decided to head to the last peak of the day which was Corn Du. So we headed there to get away from the typical tourists that had inappropriate shoes, handbags and no coat. We understood why this was when we got to Corn Du. We could see the forest and car park that was the end of day 1 for us. The hike to Pen y Fan from here would have taken no more than an hour, while we took a route that took around 4-5 hours. We figures that if we headed down this path we would not only finish our hike very early but we would be bombarded with car noise and loud tourists. So we decided to continuing on as the second day hike wouldn't have taken us that long anyway.
We headed along the Rhiw yr ysgyfarnog ridge before heading into the valley by the Neuadd Reservoir, and headed along the road back to where we started the hike. We arrived at around 4-5pm. For my usual hikes it was a normal day but as it was my first long hike in a while it felt like a long day, especially with all the gear on my back.
At the beginning of the hike we noticed a small area that would be nice to set up camp if we ever came back. We could have easily just driven back to London then but we felt it would be nice to make use of this time we had. So we headed 10 minutes up the trail that we were on earlier on that day and set up camp. We cooked some yummy boiled pasta and just sat there, along the river, resting and taking it all in.
The photo to my left and right here (above on mobile) were at the camp site as well as the primrose at the beginning of the blog.
I just wanted to finish off and say that I believe experiencing things like this in life is very important. I'm happy for anyone that wants to experience this sort of thing to come along with me and bring anyone with you. You'll be helping me a lot by coming as it will help me gain the experience I need to one day become a mountain leader.
Please check out my Instagram for more photos like this by clicking on any of the photos on this blog.
If you wanted to join me for a hike at any time, please let me know. Here is the event page for the next planned hike which will be in the Peak District.
Until next time.
Hwyl a flag!