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Published: February 2nd 2015
England, Ireland, Scotland, WALES! In the month of January we visited all four of these countries. This trip to Snowdonia with the Cambridge University Hillwalking Club provided the most exciting winter weather: a snow shower on the drive in, and some beautiful walking through snow. Despite dire weather warnings of hail, whiteouts and -20 wind chill, the weather was beautiful - relatively speaking. Point being, it didn't rain even once, the temperature hovered around zero and wind did not threaten to blow you off the mountain.
On the first day it was quite windy and we were feeling uncertain about walking in the wintry conditions, so we joined Matt's group for an easy 20km walk through a forest to Llyn Cowlyd (a resevoir, in case you don't speak Welsh). The forest was so still and quiet with the snow on the ground, but we got our fair share of bog hopping in. I have decided that snow bog is the worst kind of bog, because you can't see the muck lurking beneath the virgin white snow until you put your foot in it.
After a long day's walk and a lovely dinner with a group, we settled down to
tea, biscuits and singing. The hillwalking club has a great tradition of singing, with the songbook now in its 6th edition. Guessing the tune as we went along, James and I joined in with great enthusiasm to the likes of "I am cow", "Hillwalker", "The Hippopotamus song", as well as some Led Zeppelin.
On Sunday some of the groups went out to Snowdon (the tallest mountain in Wales at 1085m) for some ice climbing with crampons and ice-axes. Having only recently learned the meaning of the word "crampon" (a spiky thing that goes on your boot) we opted for the more accessible and less icy Moel Siabod, standing at 872m. This was our first taste of winter walking. At several points the snow was very deep and we all walked in a line, stepping in each others' footsteps which were sometimes knee-high. We could see Snowdon from the top - hopefully we'll be up to the challenge next time we are in Wales!
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