Alps 2020, Day 2: Snowboarding

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I’d never snowboarded nor watched anyone snowboard before, so I went in as blind and stupid as I was keen. The hire shop and Chattrix ski lift were a 10-minute walk from the cabin, so before I knew it Ryan was teaching me to mount a ski lift while I simultaneously attempted to mount the ski lift. This sounds okay, but given that I’d never touched a snowboard or a ski lift – which doesn’t stop and wait for you to get on – was bemusing to the seasoned skiiers watching the childishly excited and unmistakeably English novice.

Once mounted, the ski lift was amazing. As we rose higher, more and more mountains emerged, their jagged outlines crisp against the clear blue horizon. Mont Blanc dominated the skyline behind us and the ski runs below seemed very small, snaking around swathes of dark pine forest. It was smooth, still and deafeningly silent – the calm before the storm.

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The storm refers to my mood when I realised that snowboarding is a skill that must be learnt, rather than picked up instantly once on a slope. Ryan was very patient with me, despite my attempts to whiz down nose-first like the snowboarders flying past us, and I spent the first half hour alternately on my back and my knees and constantly in a foul mood. It didn’t help that the whole learning process was done on an intermediate (blue) run and an intermediate board, with a heavy-ish rucksack on, but excuses aside it was more difficult that I’d anticipated.

Eventually I listened to instructions and concentrated on moving down the slope at a shallow angle, moving from one side to the other in a slow, controlled banana curve and always keeping the upper edge of the board in contact with the snow. I learnt that I could do this facing both uphill and downhill, but came to prefer facing downhill. Once I started to get the knack I loved the rush of gaining speed and controlling the board round the corners and away from the edges, but I never stopped getting overzealous and falling over.

Once we’d completed the first run we jumped onto the Croix du Christ lift, which took us up to another blue run. At the top I was absorbed by the panoramic view and I felt the pull of every mountain, vast, mysterious and incomprehensibly enticing. This run had a long, gently sloping section which – despite the steep, unprotected drop on one side – allowed me to cruise along nose-first and appreciate that regardless of ability, I was so happy to just exist in such a breath-taking place.

The run got steeper, I fell off a bit more, and we ended up back at the start. We were peckish and the only way back to the village was up an innocuous-sounding button lift, which turned out to be categorically un-innocuous. Having barely been on a snowboard a couple of hours, once I got the silly little seat between my legs I just couldn’t stay in a straight line up the steep slope. It moves quickly, doesn’t stop to wait for you to get into position, barely takes any of your weight and has nothing to help you balance; I must have fallen off ten times before deciding that I didn’t want to hold the other skiiers (there were very few snowboarders using it, as it’s notoriously un-snowboard friendly) up, so we faced a hike back up the first blue run. I was furious gnome.

This was long, tough and blister-inducing in stiff snowboarding boots, but quite satisfying once we were back at the top of the Chattrix lift. We went down the blue run that took us back to the village, which had some really nice, flowing sections and long, steep (for a beginner) runs.

We got to the bottom and demolished a huge panini and a bottle of cider, which tasted delicious after that rollercoaster morning. Sitting still, the cold quickly reminded us that it was January in the Alps, so we didn’t hang around before hopping (lolloping, in my case) back on the Chattrix ski lift.

We spent the rest of the afternoon going round the blue Chattrix run. My relationship with snowboarding fluctuated from love to hate and back again several times, with no middle ground, as I alternately got and lost the hang of it. I didn’t realise that so much falling was involved. Ryan was irritatingly good. Even his patience with me became annoying, as I felt like I held him back a bit. Overall I loved the speed and the thrill of taking the board right to the edge of the run, then smoothly (on occasion) pulling away from the steep drops just in time. I was sold.

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When we finally decided the day was done, we walked (hobbled), grinning, back to the chalet and spent the evening cooking, drinking cheap wine mixed with syrup and chatting excitedly about snowboarding and the Alps and mountains and who knows what else. We were on a high, giddy from the adrenaline of snowboarding and the anticipation of getting back on the slopes the next day. That night the stars filled the clear black sky like I’ve never seen before, and nothing else mattered.

Alps 2020, Day 1: England – Switzerland – France

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We flew from Bournemouth and landed in Geneva an hour and a half late, around midday. A combined baggage allowance of 23kg, which included climbing gear (ie. a bunch of metal) and winter clothes, meant that I was uncomfortably warm and resembled a shallot in both shape and number of layers. It was touch and go whether we’d make it to the car hire place before we lost our booking as we had less than an hour and our collection instructions weren’t clear, but we got there and happily accepted the keys to a Polo, which was better than the VW Up that we’d booked.

7am airport beers
The Shallot

Unfortunately all we saw of Geneva was tarmac, concrete and industrial / “functional” residential buildings. Driving on the wrong side of the road was fine – the hardest thing was adjusting to sitting on the wrong side of the car. It took a little while before Ryan stopped wincing in anticipation of scraping the curb, but it was otherwise surprisingly easy to pick up. We drove down to the French Alps, watching excitedly as increasingly large, jagged mountains emerged from either side of the autoroute, and arrived in a pretty town called Les Houches. We picked up some groceries from Carrefour and headed to our AirBnB cabin, half an hour down the road in a tiny village near Saint Gervais Les Bains.

Les Houches
The beautifully neat French shops put the English to shame

The cabin was dreamy. Tiny, cosy and well-equipped, with an easy to use (even drunk) pull-out sofa bed, small kitchen area and a bathroom so little that Ry had to sit diagonally on the toilet to fit his gangly limbs in. My only qualm was the coffee machine, which I just couldn’t get the hang of. Ryan made all kinds of hot drinks with ease and admittedly it did only have one button to contend with, but every drink I made was too small, too weak, too cold or served in a wet cup because I nailed the volcano effect – where the water exploded out the top of the machine, rather than the bottom.

He cooked a lovely sausage and prawn stir fry that evening, with an unknown orange fishy-smelling sauce which was horrible on its own but lovely in the stir fry, and we spent the first night drinking a €6.50 3l box of heinous wine mixed with grenadine syrup, working out how (not?) to vlog, climbing around the little wooden cabin and planning the next day.

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This photo summarises our first attempt at vlogging. At least we can laugh about it

Update: excuses, activities and armageddon

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I’ll make the excuse now: I’ve been vlogging. Having written in January about how I’ll write more blog posts in 2020, I’ve failed to do so entirely. I went on holiday to the Alps, took loads of videos, and my train journeys (previously reserved for reading and writing) have been spent editing a hilariously amateur vlog, which I recently uploaded to YouTube – find it here (nothing can embarrass me now). But it’s done and I’m back.

I’ve had a busy couple of months as I’ve just moved offices from Reading to Bristol, which has meant moving house from Alresford to a lovely little cottage in Warminster. My new train journey is just under an hour, which suits me as it gives me the opportunity to write my blog, read books and do other productive things which require me to sit still – something I struggle with on the best of days. The town is nestled in the Wiltshire countryside, has plenty of pubs and shops, and is a good mid-point between work and friends/family in Hampshire.

Notable activities since I last wrote include a brief bouldering trip to the Agglestone (Dorset), a week in the Alps, walks round the New Forest, camping in the South Downs, a weekend at Butlins with the Hillbillies (inc. my first time powerkiting), a trip to London to see Touching the Void in theatre, a few days exploring/hiking/climbing in the Peak District, a weekend of rugby in Kent, work trips to London, Birmingham, Guildford and Taunton, and moving house. I also conducted my first court hearing and secured an environmental prosecution, which was pretty cool.

Now that this horrible virus is doing the rounds I’m not getting out as much so I hope to sort out all my admin, get my cottage ship-shape, do some creative stuff, get back into some kind of fitness routine and catch up with the blog. I’ll write again soon, no excuses. In the meantime, I hope everyone who is panic buying stops being a **** (choose your own word).

2020

New Year, the Dorset coast

2020 is a satisfyingly round number so I like this year already. It started well – I spent New Year’s Eve making burgers, drinking cider and talking rubbish in the van on the Dorset coast. Our parking spot overlooked Weymouth Bay and the night was warm enough that we kept the side door open to watch the fireworks across the water and breathe in the sea air. I think going out for NYE is overrated – too busy, too expensive and always anticlimactic.

We had a chilled morning in the van on New Year’s Day, then walked around the deserted village of Tyneham. The village is situated on a military range and was cleared out for WW2 training purposes, so all that remains are empty cottages, a pretty church and a very cute school.

After a quick wander we took the donkey track down to Worbarrow Bay, a lovely self-contained curve of the Dorset coastline, which was picturesque but far too peopley. To make the walk circular we climbed the steep cliff and took the much less busy, much more scenic route back along the SW Coast path, and before we knew it we found ourselves in a Wareham pub.

Van nights 10/10
Van mornings 10/10
Tyneham school
Worbarrow Bay

Other news

I didn’t take any time off over Christmas as I’d rather save my leave for adventuring, so I don’t have anything particularly notable to share. So far this year I’ve ran around the rolling valleys of Wiltshire, got back in the bouldering centre, done some much-needed admin and caught up with some unforgivably neglected friends.

I would have done more but my usual style of living fast while trying not to die young were abated by a rugby-induced hospital visit in Guernsey on Saturday 4th Jan. Fortunately I hobbled away with just (annoyingly lingering) whiplash and fond but blurry memories of gas and air. Guernsey was cool, though – rocky, quirky and pretty similar to Jersey.

In other other news, I object to “new year’s resolutions” because I’m always unrealistic and inevitably disappoint myself, but the one thing I’ve thought about lately (the fact it just so happens to be the turn of the decade is coincidental) is how I’d like to write more on my blog. So I suppose writing about writing on my blog is a start – great success.

The Chalk Valley
Ostrich steak, mind-blowing
Saints RFC international
New Forest walkies
One clean van…
Pretty Wiltshire
Tom playing
Bournemouth walkies

Upcoming excitement: The Alps

The real breaking news of January 2020 is that Ryan and I have booked flights to Geneva with the intention of exploring the Alps at the end of the month. We’ve even been organised enough to have booked four out of seven nights’ accommodation (near Chamonix) and a hire car. This might be more advance planning than I’ve ever done before, so smug is an understatement. (I only realised today that we’re off next Friday – I thought we still had about 3 weeks to wait – but that’s by-the-by).

Beyond that we don’t have a plan, which is cool. Activities on the cards are skiing, snowboarding, snowshoeing, hiking, rock climbing, ice climbing, summiting a summit or two and kayaking on Lake Geneva. We’ll think about it soon, but I’d love recommendations if anyone has been in or knows about the area, especially in winter. Would also accept charitable donations and/or winter kit, as it turns out the lifestyle I’d like is more expensive that the lifestyle I can afford.*

 

Thanks for reading this far, more to come soon as per my strictly non-new year’s resolution.

Love, a (very) Curious Gnome x

 

*Obviously tongue-in-cheek, the world is in turmoil so please redirect all charitable donations to the Australian bush fire effort or similar

Portland Climb/Camp, Nov/Dec’19

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Apparently Portland is “the” place to go climbing on the central-south coast of England. Connected to Dorset by only a skinny finger of land, it offers long stretches of walk-in limestone cliffs with easy parking and lovely sea views.

We made a last-minute decision to join my brother’s climbing club trip, inhaled some bacon at Hill HQ, threw our gear into the car and headed to Portland. It was a fine day and we arrived at the Battleship Back Cliff area on the west side of the island late morning. After missing the concealed approach down the cliff, we found a fixed rope and scrambled down. On the way down we saw what looked like a red climbing helmet by the base of a rock near sea level. I scrabbled off to look for it/its owner but couldn’t see it again, and we carried on along the cliff to find Angus’s group.

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They were climbing at The Block and The Veranda, two opposing walls which form a kind of open-roofed, wind-sheltered corridor. The routes on the landward-facing Block side were short and grades ranged from 4 to 6b+. The group had left a few ropes in the wall which, although annoying at a busy crag (which it wasn’t), was good as it meant we could fly up and down quickly. It was nice and chilled as Angus’s friends had mixed climbing experience, so there was lots of milling about/chatting/coaching/milling about. Ryan might like me to mention that he led a tricky 6a+ (hope you’re reading); I climbed four Block routes and a nice, high one on the Veranda side, then helped the club clean some gear before we lost daylight.

 

We scrabbled back to the car via a near via-ferrata type scramble/staircase, shoes slipping and clagging with clayey mud, said bye to the group (who were staying in Weymouth) and headed off to scout out a camping spot. We found a perfect place tucked between two bolted rock faces on Portland’s southeast side, went to a shop for cider and snacks, then found ourselves in the lovely and cosy Eight Kings pub in Southwell.

Well fed and watered*, we carried our gear into the cold and very windy dark, through brambles, over a gaping crevasse, down a steep, loose slope and round an awkward tight corner to the camping spot. We had the tent pitched and occupied in less than 15 minutes and spent the evening talking rubbish, drinking Old Rosie and feeling happily isolated from the world. Cold November nights spent confined under a thin bit of fabric are tragically underrated.

We laid in on Sunday morning, which I could cope with (I’m not a lay-in kind of person) because camping is worthwhile in its own right. The weather was finer than the previous day – clear and dry, but still windy. It was a lovely spot, a mini gorge tucked away from view and enclosed on all sides, accessible only by a narrow scramble around a corner and wild with brambles. The coastal path runs along the top of the seaward wall, but is just far enough back from the scrubby edge that the gorge is hidden. The view from that path was magnificent – colourful vegetation and scattered rocks covered the gradual slope down to the clear blue sea, and the pale cliffs of the Jurassic coast shone to the east in the low winter sun.

There was no need to look for climbs as the two opposing limestone walls of the gorge were bolted and climbable, so we harnessed up. We rattled through six short bolted routes in a couple of hours, swapping leads. We didn’t climb particularly hard but it was good to get through a handful of climbs. The only really memorable bit was the awkward position I managed to get myself into when I jammed both knees into a big, overhanging horizontal crack, leant back and practically dislocated a shoulder to clip a bolt above.

We finished with a fun, flakey route, which Ryan led and belayed from a top anchor, and were lured home by talk of a fire and Raclette at Hill HQ (thanks to lovely Cam). We returned with rosy cheeks and rock-battered hands, bitter at Monday’s imminence but pleased to have got back on real rock. Portland had shown us its climbing potential and needless to say we’ll be back.

 

*cidered

Lazy weekend (feat. a 20mile bike ride, a scrapbook and a climb)

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Deviating from my usual trip-away-type post, I thought I’d scribble a few words about a weekend spent making the most of a lack of plans, no van and a poorly man.

There were seven of us drinking at Hill HQ on Friday night, which was spent talking happy nonsense about nobody knows what. Ryan was due to play rugby on Saturday but he’d been ill the previous day and still wasn’t in great shape, so after cooking breakfast he spent the morning dying on the sofa while I cleaned up the night’s wreckage, painted a mountain and read a book.

By early afternoon I was twitching with restlessness, so I announced my plan to go out walking in the New Forest. Sicknote gallantly objected and insisted that he accompany me on a bike ride, so we cycled out into the drizzle. We stopped under a graffiti-covered concrete bridge over the wide river Avon, squawked and whistled like little kids in return for an echo, then rode past flooded fields, pretty villages, damp ponies and striking amber beeches, birches and oaks to the Red Shoot pub.

I realised the severity of his condition when he ordered a Coke instead of a beer, so although the pub was lovely we didn’t hang about long. On the way back we passed through (and nearly brought home) a herd of inquisitive pigs, and watched in amusement as they were shooed out of a garden by a boy with a broom. Ryan kept adding bits to the route, either to show me more of the area or to tire me out, and after flying down a long, muddy track we returned as the light dwindled.

The evening was unusually quiet and alcohol-free, but lovely and chilled. We de-mudded, he cooked and I made an adventure scrapbook, sprawled on the floor with a Pritt stick, a wodge of photos and Red Bull TV in the background.

Sunday threatened to be a quiet one and I couldn’t get to rugby because a) I’d made New Forest plans and b) was vanless, so after a morning of cooking, painting and last minute dashing to the shop for Cam’s birthday card, we headed down to Calshot indoor climbing centre to do the first bit of roped climbing I’d done in way too long.

I hadn’t been there for about 18 months, and since then they’ve added a “twiglet” feature, new bouldering cave and more autobelays. We did some toproping, leading and autobelaying, and I messily attempted the twiglet’s crack climb. Having borrowed a mixture of Tom, Adam and Millie’s climbing stuff, we were done fairly quickly due to too-tight shoes and Ryan’s lingering illness, but it was good to get down there and I promised myself I’ll go more often.

The weekend finished as it had started – around the table at Hill HQ, this time over a Sunday roast. To conclude – lovely, relaxing and over-too-soon.

Dartmoor, October ’19

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We left for Devon on Friday evening, undeterred by the miserable forecast and keen to escape the week. After a drink in the Ring O’Bells at Chagford and a sketchy drive along some flooded back roads (sketchy because of the flooding, not the drink), we spent the night in an empty roadside car park on the moors near the Warren House Inn. The wind howled outside and sideways-rain thrashed relentlessly at the windows, making the van extra cosy and the thought of a Saturday hike extra unappealing.

Fortunately the 9am England vs New Zealand World Cup semi-final provided a watertight excuse to chill out in the van. That morning I discovered the best way to watch rugby: tucked in bed, coffee in hand, storm raging outside, on a phone held by two karabiners onto a bungee cord strung across the ceiling of the van. For those 80 minutes the world was perfect, and England’s 19-7 victory topped it off with icing and a cherry.

Reluctant to waste the day, we drove across the bleak, blustery moor. I’d hoped to wander over the old clapper bridge at Postbridge but it was flooded, so we went on to Princetown and went round Dartmoor Prison museum. The prison itself is a foreboding, horror film-esque building, but that morning it was swallowed and obscured by oppressive, thick grey fog. The museum was really interesting; highlights included escape stories, improvised weapons, cleverly concealed contraband and all sorts of prison-made matchstick models.

The weather was still grim so we wandered round the National Park visitor centre, turned down a (strangely?) friendly shopkeeper’s invite to a Halloween party, found a good overnight spot in Princetown, chilled out in the van for a while, planned Sunday’s hike and spent the evening eating and drinking in the cosy Plume of Feathers pub. I assume we had a good time as I don’t remember returning to the van.

We were up quite early on Sunday morning, thanks in part to the clocks going back. We watched South Africa beat Wales during breakfast at the Fox Tor café, a buzzing little outdoorsey hostel/café in Princetown, and plodded (mild hangovers prevented exuberant movement) out onto the moors to make the most of the dry weather.

I’d plotted a rough route by circling tors on the map and joining them up. We walked past the towering Princetown TV mast along a long stretch of bridleway, then scrambled down a rocky edge into disused Foggintor quarry. This is a big granite playground containing a lake, lots of bouldering/climbing/scrambling/camping potential and a few sheep bones. After messing around like children we carried on to King’s Tor as the crow flies, which involved scrambling down a huge pile of boulders and wading through knee-high tufts of boggy grass.

It was pleasantly dry at the top of the hill and we scrambled over the tor, admiring the view. Rugged moorland surrounded us on three sides, punctuated by granite tors which towered like huge stacks of elephant poo, and in front rolling countryside marked the edge of the National Park. We climbed down and carried on, following a curved track once used by quarry carts round to Ingra Tor. After a bit more scrambling we bore east and headed uphill past a group of hardy-looking Dartmoor ponies towards the scree-sided Sharpitor, but it was a little out the way and looked pretty similar to the other elephant poos so we turned left at the B3212 and headed back towards Princetown.

This section took us parallel to a slab-lined stream which we’ve decided to revisit in summer – it’s practically wasted as a water supply as it’d make a perfect lazy river. We walked along this low-lying bit of moor, past dark fir forest, reddish ferns and scrubby bushes, found a tucked-away spot by a waterfall for next time’s pre-lazy river camping, and climbed the gradual slope up to Hart Tor. Here the surrounding moorland is covered by rippling golden grass which touches the horizon on three sides, broken only by the blue haze silhouette of Sharpitor and Tryfan-shaped Leather Tor to the southwest. View admired and Hart Tor being our last circle on the map, we descended across the wild, yellowey moor and followed the road back into Princetown.

So far I’ve failed to mention my idiocy the previous afternoon, perhaps in the hope that anyone reading has got bored by now. I had been enjoying van’n’chill so much that time spent listening to music with the ignition on had flown by and drained the battery. We realised this on Saturday but prioritised the pub (which I do not regret), so we were left with the job of organising a jump start post-hike. I was devastated to find out that a) we couldn’t jump the main battery with the leisure one, and b) my breakdown cover doesn’t cover campervans, but found an alternative service (Kev from Plymouth) which arrived quickly and sorted the problem.*

And so we left Dartmoor, half ashamed, half amused, fully satisfied with a lovely weekend (despite the weather) and fully disappointed that it was over.

*NB – I’ve since written to the insurance provider and received a full refund plus the cost of Kev’s callout, so you can sleep tonight knowing that justice was served.

Cheddar Gorge, October ’19

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After a sedentary couple of weeks due to the complicated removal of two awkward wisdom teeth, I was twitchy-restless. The weather looked grim so we decided to have a gentle weekend away and travelled the shortish distance to Cheddar Gorge, part of Somerset’s Mendip Hills AONB, on Friday evening.

We found a perfect roadside camping spot between the high walls of the gorge and graced a couple of lovely little pubs with our presence: the Gardeners Arms, a cosy old bar, and the White Hart, which did really good food at really, really good prices.

It rained heavily overnight but was okay by the time we were awake, caffeinated and stocked up with painkillers for my still-chubby cheeks. After a brief wander round Cheddar we set off on a 4-mile hike around the gorge. Starting from the town, we walked up a steep, muddy wooded section to gain the high north edge, then through rugged goat fields along the West Mendip Way.

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I laughed at Ryan when he saw a “budgie” fly up from the forest across the gorge, which I suspected was some pale brown bird lit up by the sun but later turned out to be (maybe, I’m 50/50 convinced) a yellowhammer. We descended into a wood crammed with hazelnuts, crossed the road at Black Rock and climbed up the steep wood to the gorge’s long, scrubby, mushroom-scattered south edge.

The vertical limestone faces on this side are without doubt the most impressive part of the gorge, towering over the tiny road that winds through the middle. We wandered onto the huge grass-covered fingers of rock jutting into the shadowy valley, regretting that it was too wet to climb – nice looking, partly bolted rock stretches down for several pitches. There’s something exhilarating and unsettling about how the suddenly the ground drops away here, and I was fixated by the ant-like cars snaking along the pass hundreds of feet below.

This south edge offers the best view of the gorge, which abounds in three things – lush vegetation, rocky outcrops and goats. Funny little coarse-haired faces pop up all over the place, from high up sheer rock faces to roads down in the town. Looking across the valley over the crevasse-like edge, the north bank slopes comparatively gently and is carpeted with scrubby, hardy grass, punctuated by smaller rock faces and wind-beaten bushes. A mixed forest thrives at the shallower top end of the gorge until its arrest on the south side by the huge grey rock faces, too sheer to be penetrated by roots.

The landscape around the gorge is strikingly flat in comparison. Miles of green fields stretch out in all directions, lined by straight hedges and interspersed with clusters of reddish rooves. The perfectly round Cheddar Reservoir and Brent Knoll stand out from the otherwise uninterrupted flatness, and the rough, rugged edges of Cheddar Gorge contrast starkly with its cultivated, inhabited, carefully constructed surroundings.

We climbed down the steps of Jacob’s ladder back to Cheddar town and spent the afternoon/evening buying cheese, drinking cider and playing pub games. Cheddar has a decent variety of shops and (more importantly) drinking establishments – we went from a sports bar to a wild west style saloon to a traditional, cosy pub. Choosing to bypass the hairdressers-by-day, nightclub-by-night, we stumbled back clutching kebabs and chasing goats.

Come Sunday the weather was less agreeable and my chubby, partly toothless face was hurting, so we loitered in the Costa tucked into the side of the gorge before heading to Wells, England’s smallest city. I was keen to see the cathedral and wasn’t disappointed – it’s a vast, beautifully detailed and satisfyingly symmetrical building situated in lovely grounds next to a moated bishop’s palace. There was a food festival thing on so the town was swarming with people, but otherwise it looked old and very pretty. We found a quirky old gaolhouse pub, rehydrated and headed reluctantly home.

NB: we didn’t do any caving due to very wet weather (so much so that some of the commercial caves were shut), one sore face and less disposable income than we’d like, but it’s definitely on the to do list for next time.

Brecon Beacons, September ’19

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Usk Valley camping

One of my favourite camping spots is halfway up the Sugar Loaf side of the Usk Valley, accessible only by narrow, winding roads often blocked by sheep. We arrived about 9pm and spent the rest of the evening doing my favourite kind of relaxing – under a starry sky, cider in hand, van door open, Dire Straits playing and overlooking the streetlight-spangled valley.

The Big Four horseshoe hike

After cooked breakfast and admin (feat. both hobs and a gas burner), we drove to Blaen-y-Glyn and parked at a jaunty angle on a bank. We planned to do the Big Four horseshoe hike, an 8-mile loop which includes the summits of Fan y Big, Cribyn, Pen y Fan and Corn Du.

After an accidental detour into a forest, we set off past a waterfall and up an alarmingly long, steep hill. The path was rocky but well-kept and the view became increasingly impressive as we climbed, with the sweeping ridges stretching in long layers out to the horizon, carpeted by that hardy kind of grass that lives stubbornly on bleak, rugged hills. Eventually the ground levelled out and we followed the path around three sheer sides of a rectangular plateau which forms the easternmost edge of the four horseshoe-shaped ridges.

We walked along the curved ridge of the first horseshoe to Fan y Big (heehee) and decided to skip a photo on the diving board shaped slab of rock. People were congregating with sandwiches and elaborate camera setups, and ain’t nobody got time for queuing when post-hike pub plans have been made. I stopped to tend to a potential blister, then we descended the steep ridge to the base of the ominously steep first section of Cribyn.

We pushed on up the slope, heads down and toes jamming into the soily steps kicked into the hillside by hundreds of stubborn, stampey walkers. I hate stopping for breaks on tough, steep sections, so I ignored my protesting legs and let the pull of a promised pint power me up. The gradient eased as we followed the curve of the second horseshoe to the summit, then plummeted down as we turned towards the distinctive twin tabletop peaks of Pen y Fan and Corn Du.

The section between Cribyn and Pen y Fan is distinctly V-shaped, with a boggy bit in the middle and a long set of steps up to the summit. As expected this was swarming with people and there was a cringe-ily British queue for the 886m sign, which we pointedly ignored. The wind had got up since Cribyn and we hurried along the short, busy ridge to the cairn at the top of Corn Du, past the throng from the Storey Arms “donkey track”, and wasted no time in moving south along the long, straight ridge that runs parallel to the curved ridges of Cribyn and Fan y Big.

The long valley created by the smooth, curved sides of the two parallel ridges contains the now drained Neuadd reservoirs, walled on one side by an imposing, slate-grey gothic dam and encircled by trees. To the south, dark pine forests cover vast sections of the hillsides like creeping shadows. After a long stretch along the Graig Fan Ddu path, we bore left down the steep slope into the belly of the valley, came to the lower Neuadd reservoir, and followed the works diversion across the Taf Fechan river to the edge of Taf Fechan forest.

The path curved round along the edge of the dark treeline, which now revealed an abundant variety of evergreens, conifers, shrubs and flowers. Sheep bumbled around scrubby fields, and although pleasant (-ly flat) the last section along dirt track and road dragged a little – we were well into pub o’clock.

4hours 45mins and 8 miles later, we got back to the van, changed and rushed off to the pretty town of Brecon, where we found a spot to stay overnight. Somehow we ended up in Wetherspoons* and spent the evening quelling hunger and sobriety.

*somehow = £3.60 a pint

MTBing, Forest of Dean

It was too wet to climb on Sunday, so after a quick detour to the National Park visitor centre and a walk round the quaint village of Crickhowell, we headed to the Forest of Dean for a spin on the mountain bikes.

We managed to get lost before we even started and ended up joining the Verderer’s trail (graded blue, intermediate), a 7 mile cross country loop, a few waymarkers past the start. It was mostly well-kept singletrack, with mainly sustained uphill sections to begin with and flowing downhill runs towards the end. It wasn’t too technical, but on a downhill bit with an “adverse” camber my fairly bald front tyre slid out and sent me flying down the bank. I was more concerned for my bike than my scraped left shoulder, arm and leg, but it was fine.

I wasn’t going to mention Ryan’s achey legs but I will, purely for the fact that he was being a fanny and – once we reached the car park where we should have started – decided that he was too tired to complete the loop and ride the couple of hundred metres to where we actually started. Sorry not sorry – the map on my Garmin app has a gap in. But we agreed to come back for longer and complete it next time, along with the Freeminers trail (graded red, experienced), so he was forgiven.

Verdict: 9.5/10, great weekend (-0.5 for the incomplete bike trail)

Climbing in the Pass of Ballater

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Every place looks better in the sun but especially Aberdeen. Dubbed “granite city”, dark grey buildings against a dark grey sky make it seem very dull. Against a blue sky, however, the granite blocks glitter, accentuating every other colour and making the tree-lined streets look surreally bright.

I appreciated the sunny sky as we wandered into town and enjoyed a chilled Saturday morning before heading out to the Cairngorms. It’s about an hour’s drive from Aberdeen, through vast, open countryside. The cattle and sheep fields sprawl out over the long, low hills as if the land goes on forever, buildings are few and far between, and there’s a general sense of spaciousness that makes the countryside of southern England seem very cramped.

The plateau of the Cairngorms rose up from the horizon, giving a dramatic, snow-capped backdrop to the wide, lush valley with its shallow salmon rivers and dark patches of forest. We drove into the national park and found the Pass of Ballater car park after a quick look at the UKC crag map. It’s a beautifully self-contained valley with steep sides made of scrambley forest sections and climbable rock faces, and we scrabbled our ungainly way up the steep northern bank to a vertical slab.

We lacked a guidebook so finding a [doable] climb was a stab in the dark. Luckily we soon came across chalk marks on what turned out to be (thanks to another group’s book) an HVS 5a called Original Route. I led it with some difficulty – getting off the ground was tough and protection at the awkward top section was sparse – and was relieved to find a nice tree belay at the top.

It was one of those days where “we” felt a bit fluffy, so we were happy to spend the rest of the afternoon messing around – chatting to other climbers, bouldering and staring transfixed over the magnificent forest on the opposite side of the pass, which was alive with an incredible mix of trees. I’ve never seen so many shades of green, and the branches seemed to whisper to each other as they brushed together in the breeze. The snow-capped peak of Lochnagar rose in the distance at one end of the pass, and the open valley swept across the landscape at the other end. Perfect, humanless tranquillity.

We tore ourselves away in time to nip into Ballater and grab a Balmoral loaf from Chalmers bakery as recommended by another climber. Set nestled among mountains and forests, Ballater has a timeless, fairytale-like feel, with its pretty buildings, grassy square and clean, colourful, tree-lined streets.

Carb-loaded and content, we headed back to Aberdeen in time to catch the rugby and spent the evening testing a few pubs. I can’t share the detail as I don’t know it, but the next morning we were fragile enough that we woke up late and had to cut three munros out of our planned hiking route…