Despite some tired legs and a general level of fatigue, the snowy winter mountains tempted us out again. After a short and slightly spicy drive up an un-gritted back road, we abandoned the van and set out to climb Mynydd Perfedd from the Nant Ffrancon valley.
Although we saw no one all day, the snow was littered in animal tracks of many different kinds. We started off following a fox or two, then we caught a wiff of some goats up ahead. Mice, shrew, voles, birds, sheep, goats and who knows what else had all left little tracks in the snow. There are always up there, but usually go about their business undetected and leaving no trace.
The goats had picked the best route, so we followed their tracks to the base of (what we call) Goat Ridge. Here things got steeper and more interesting, but the snow remained powdery and soft. It was a bit like walking through a bowl of sugar.
As we neared the top of the ridge, we caught up with the goats whose tracks we had been following. There were nine in a line happily seeking out things to eat. They all had impressive horns like Ibex.
The sun never got very high in the sky today. This was about midday.
A sweep of cloud was flowing through the valley below us and the calm skies gave quite an eerie feel.
On top of the ridge, we walked across the plateau to the summit cairn shelter.
The sun just about provided a little warmth, but even with all our jackets on we soon cooled down and had to move on.
It was a pretty spectacular vista...
To get down, we made some exciting bum slides down the steeper slopes, through the soft snow.
And then walked the last part back down to the valley. A short walk along the old road, got us back to the van around 14:00. The temperature was still below freezing, but the van managed to get us out of trouble and back onto the main road without drama.
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