Saturday 30th November and Sunday 1st December 2013
On Friday it was Claire’s work Christmas party at head office near Cirencester. The weather forecast looked quite good so we decided to go in George, not drink too much free wine, and spend the weekend ticking some peaks off our list. We succeeded in not drinking too much, in fact we didn’t spend a penny on drinks (!), although I did eat a huge amount of fancy nibbles which were being offered round on trays before the main meal. Neither of us had a very good sleep - me through too much food, and Claire probably from me tossing and turning. Anyway, we both both glad to get up and stop not sleeping when morning came, so we were on the road by 9am!
A couple of months ago I came across a list in Trail magazine, originally titled “The Trail 100”. It’s a list of the 100 best (in their opinion) hills in the UK to climb before you die. So we’ve been targeting those hills when we get the chance, as we’re both fond of ticking things off lists. If you’re interested, here are a couple of links to the list and an article about the peaks:
So this weekend, we decided to tick off two of the listed hills in the Brecon Beacons - Sugarloaf Mountain and Pen Y Fan. For some reason, I thought the Brecon Beacons were close to Cirencester. Possibly because I thought they were part of the Cotswolds (which they’re not). Or possibly because my geography south of Stoke is poor. It turned out that the nearest Brecon Beacon was a 90 minute drive from Cirencester. Good job we made that early start.
We started our walk up Sugarloaf Mountain at about 11am. The Sugarloaf is anything but a mountain. At 1,955 feet it isn’t classed as a mountain even by the most generous of peak classifiers. But it was on the list, and was described as a “charismatic nipple”, so we thought we’d better see what all the fuss was about.
We were both feeling a bit groggy and more in the mood for a nap than a walk, but we made it to the top, and enjoyed our sandwiches in the sunshine with a nice, albeit rather hazy view across south Wales. There were plenty of other people on the hill, although there was not too much summit hogging going on as it was a bit breezy up there.
I only got us slightly lost on the way down, and we had a quick cup of tea and a muffin in George before heading off to find somewhere to stop for the night.
We spent the night in a small car park by a reservoir, just far enough away from Merthyr Tydfil for us to feel safe. We were both tired out, and were in bed for 8 and asleep by 9!
I got up at 7 the following morning and had just got myself ready, and was trying to persuade Claire to do the same, when some sort of exhibition truck pulled up in the car park and manoeuvred itself in behind George. Then 3 squaddies jumped out and started setting up a portable generator and signs warning of marching troops. We packed up quickly in a huff, and drove the couple of miles to the start of our walk, where we had our breakfast and made a packed lunch in peace.
Our walk was to take in Pen Y Fan, which is the highest peak of the Brecon Beacons at 2,907 feet. I’d decided were were going to do a horseshoe, to include two other peaks called Cribyn, and Fan Y Big. Well, you can’t not go up a mountain with a name like that, can you?
The walk started with a steep climb up to a long ridge leading to the summit. It was muddy, and as soon as we got onto the ridge, very cold, as there was a biting wind. I realised quite early on that I was unsuitably dressed and was going to spend most of the day feeling cold. Not dangerously so, just uncomfortably so. Apart from the cold, once we were on the ridge, it was easy walking to the summit. I was surprised to see some people walking in shorts, but they did have very hairy legs, so maybe that was sufficient insulation for them. My body hair wasn't doing such a good job.
The summit (and the ridge and surrounding peaks) had been in and out of the cloud all morning, and we couldn’t see much when we were up there. We jostled our way to the front of a queue for photos at the summit (sad but true), and then retreated out of the wind for lunch.
Lunch was OK, although not as enjoyable as it could have been due to the temperature and the failure of the Jetboil to light, and the resulting lack of tea. Sometime during lunch, the clouds parted, and we started feeling a bit more enthusiastic about the rest of the walk. By the time we’d made it up the steep slopes of Cribyn the feeling had returned to my fingers, and I even unzipped my jacket on the way up Fan Y Big!
We headed down without eating our muffins, having decided to wait until they could be washed down with some hot tea. On our way down, we heard an almighty racket which we thought came from a helicopter about to appear. It turned out to be 3 off road motorbikes being ridden along the route we’d just done. We were horrified to see them, and understood why the path was so muddy. I was relieved my dad wasn’t there, as at least one of them would probably have ended up having an unfortunate accident. He takes unwanted motorbikes very seriously, and rightly so.
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