Arenig Fawr

Or Great High Ground.

Day Two of the New Year Holiday and what is known as a "Wycherley Walk" by the group, it's also variously known as "the difficult walk", "the challenging walk", "the silly walk", "the bloody stupid walk", "the 'I'd rather be in the pub' walk" and a million-and-one other things describing the often sheer stupidity of what we undertake in doing it.

It was even more silly than usual this year as you can see from the shot above it wasn't that great in terms of weather to start with! We managed to get up from the valley to the edge of Llyn Arenig Fawr, the reservoir supplying nearby Bala, where on the far eastern side we took shelter briefly in the walking shack that's there before heading up the summit trail to the lower part of the moutain. We took lunch here in the fairly light rain and sheltered from the wind on a goat path running beneath the south-west bluff overlooking the reservoir.

The trouble then emerged when we came back around and started the summit ascent - bloody horrible is one way to describe it. Really bloody horrible also covers it - there was high-speed wind, rain and the ground was just a series of bogs. I ended up in the 'not going up there!' party and from what my friends who made the summit told me I probably made a good choice - no way would I have taken my camera out on top with all the moisture (it was bad enough just at lunch!). Our party got to the bottom about 30 minutes before the others and from there as we walked back to the cars the weather rolled in - no more photos were taken except for an identical one to above with nothing visible beyond the river thanks to the mist.


The most fun part on getting back to the cars was discovering that most of the rain had run down my chin and completely soaked my t-shirt and the top of my trousers - at least my new gaiters had kept them half-dry - my boots/socks were waterlogged beyond belief. On the bright side we were all so soaked afterward that we went to a pub rather than back to the house, and it was complete with a roaring fire that at least partially dried out my shoes - and I did have a spare pair of socks as well.

The next day would see some slightly nicer weather at least...