Carried away in a moonlight shadow

It was the big adventure day today. We were planning a long run followed by a night camped in the mountains and a shorter run the next day. Disaster struck when we went to the cafe for dinner, only to find that they'd closed the kitchen and only coffee and baked items were available. A scone and cake it had to be.

Dada Byde then drove us to the foot of the first trail, Telegraph Valley, and we set off to ascend Snowdon. Going was quite tough for the first hour, more because of scone and cake rather than anything else. It was a beautiful evening and we only saw one person before reaching the summit. As it was windy and bathed in cloud, we needed jackets. I had a quick chat with a receptive seagull and then we started to descent, looking for the miners trail. As no one was about, I decided to have a quick wee and call to Rosemary that I had my willie out. That very second, a group of hill walkers emerged from the thick cloud......hopefully only hearing me sing "tum te tum te ta".

Due to an affliction that means my hand-eye co-ordination is rubbish, I struggled with the rocky descent but Rosemary was patient. It was better when we hit the main track and got a good pace up towards Pen-y-pass. It would be our last chance for water that night so we filled up in the youth hostel and then descended further. Unfortunately, we picked the wrong path and found ourselves slowed by a boggy that resulted in squelchy feet.

We crossed the road at Hafod Rhisgl, seeing a man chopping wood off a tree suspiciously. He had a bobble hat and a camper van so he couldn’t have been all bad! Not for the first time in the day, I hooked up to Rosemary with a bungee cord. This isn’t some medieval control tool but rather an adventure racing trick in which the faster person tows the slower one and maintains the pace too. Just as well because although 
Dada had described the bridleway as a ‘county road’, it was steep and only navigable by foot. Humidity was also high, resulting in lots of sweating. “I don’t want to speak now” I said to Rosemary. “May I speak?” she asked and I muttered a faint “yeah”. We stopped at the top for a snack and to admire the view over to Snowdon.


Now on the top of a flat hill with an OK path, it should have been runnable but I was only up for the occasional little jog. Only 3km to go though…..my GPS had run out of juice so it was at this stage I lost awareness of distance and time. It started to get dark but I was reassured by the moon, that was until we turned left off the main path and onto a vague track that followed a wee burn. Rosemary remained upbeat but I started to get nervous as it got darker.  We were both now falling into boggy holes, the moon and the path both disappeared. Head torches were switched on and then we continued. I was convinced we had travelled more than 3km and was struggling to keep my mood positive.

Just then, Rosemary told me to switch my head torch off and as my eyes adjusted, I could see an inky expanse far below. We saw another torch and heard voices too….others were obviously wild camping beside the lake. It took an age to get down the hill, mainly because I was really tired and was moving like a snail who’d overdosed on ketamine. My beloved prodded about in the gloom looking for somewhere to pitch the tent. Llynau Diwaunedd is really two lakes with a very narrow bit in the middle with boulderous stepping stones. I spotted what appeared to be a relatively flat bit on the other side of the lake, Rosemary navigated the boulders and confirmed it was a good place if the tent pegs could go in. Fortunately they did.


It had turned midnight when we settled. Some fool had left the flap open so what was originally a one person tent had suddenly also managed to accommodate ten zillion midges. That didn’t put us off dinner, a family bag of salt and vinegar crisps.