“Arduous walking conditions and drenching periods of heavy rain” were the words of the weather forecast! Not a promising opener for the planning of my day of mountain walking.
It sounded bad. Really bad for a day in the mountains, but if you are used to regularly reading the forecast for a particular area, you can begin to tune into the subtleties of the text and start to draw you own conclusions about when and where the worst weather will be.
There is always a dilemma of balance for the Mountain Leader, working in such conditions, to give an adventurous day out, but one that is safe and actually enjoyable!
We decided upon headed out onto the far eastern side of Snowdonia, as this seemed to be receiving the best of the bad forecast. We were right. We still got battered by the winds and hit by some heavy showers, but the conditions felt more exhilarating than hostile most of the time.
As well as staying off the exposed ridges and summits, this route also had the benefits of a secret mountain Bothy (Look closely in the centre of the photo above). Shelter from the elements would normally be good enough and was indeed gratefully received. But we had come prepared, and had each carried up a dry log, so were able to warm the place up and enjoy the comfort of the fire over lunch.
I’ve sat out several storms here over the years and always enjoy introducing a team to the place and teaching a bit of Bothy Etiquette. Sometimes it’s hard to leave the warmth of the fire place, but today, the strong southerlies had brought some freakishly high temperatures to North Wales - It was 18°C when we arrived back at the bus!
Only a few of us still had dry feet at the end of the day and most were soaked to the pants. The ground is completely saturated in the mountains and this area is rarely dry even in mid summer. There was an air of triumph and we drove off, that we had both experienced and survived!
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