The Plan That Wasn’t the Plan

The Welsh 3000's, that was the plan for my partner and I. 14 peaks, 30 miles, 14000ft of ascent; the perfect route for an adventure and some incredible photos. Was. With as trained quad partially healed, and weather apps competing amongst themselves to display the windiest and wettest weather possible with weather warnings ahead, we had to make that most mentally painful decision ahead of a big day in the mountains and say, not today.

We had accommodation sorted, and time booked away from work, what was possible? As we arrived at our room for the night, I wasted no time and sprawled over a map of Snowdonia. By total chance, we realised our spot for the night was right on a path leading up to a mountain that just scrapes just under the 3000ft mark, at 2860ft. Scanning the forecasts again showed little had changed, tomorrow was a write off, this evening was bearable. With sunset in three hours time we threw together a plan, the route was 8k with 700m of ascent, we rush packed some gear into running packs making sure we had equipment to keep us safe, and set out the door.

Having barely arrived, we set off walking at first to warm up, it was a moderately steep track heading towards a gate and stile. As so often seems to happen in the UK, when you step over the threshold from farmland to mountain, the clouds darken, the wind picks up, and the static crackle of rain on waterproofs begins. This trio combined feels like the mountain ahead is poking fun at us, “Are you sure this is a good idea?” it seems to say. We were fully expecting a little rain a the start, with the promise of it clearing later, however the increasingly dark hill ahead threatens to break that promise, but we plod on. The trail is a typical slatey welsh affair, sometimes a river, sometimes not, we pass through old quarry workings and up to a boggy lake filled plateau. The trail becomes indecisive just as the light levels seem to drop once again. The other side of the lake ramps up to become a rocky ridge, disappearing into the clouds above. We decide to stay high to avoid the bog, it seems a defined trail at first, but it slowly fades to saturated grass, we can just about see enough to plot our route up to the ridge. Running becomes walking which in turn evolves to scrambling, the gradient increases and snow patches start to dictate our routing. After using a “it was mildly worse than it looked” kind of a gully, we hit the final ridge, which offered some excellent mild scrambling in the rapidly darkening light.

I was starting to get that deep pang of disappointment that hits when you plan to catch a sun rise/set and it just turns out dark and grey, however a faint orange glow appeared over the crest of the hill, and with every footstep the orange grew more intense as does the freezing wind. Finally as we hit the top, we are blinded by the deepest orange sunlight despite the heavy dark clouds directly above us. Way in the distance there is just about enough of a gap in the clouds for the sun to fire through, skimming the bottom of our grim blanket above and etching into our retinas one of the best sunsets we've ever seen. It lasts barely seconds, we climb the final few metres to the trig point and the intensity vanishes as the sun drops behind a mountain, the dark and cold resume their places. This summit must see frequent bad weather, as a stone wind break gives us some respite from the sub-freezing temperatures and roar of the wind. Stoves are whipped out in seconds, and it's not long before hot mashed potato and soup revive us. We've not seen a soul since we set out, and our only companion in the shelter is a snow patch quietly observing our mysterious enjoyment of hot food whilst it's -10 wind chill outside the shelter wall.

Fuelled up, warm and with head torches guiding us, we set off on the descent, the going is rougher than we expect, and at the last steep section it starts snowing. Not the soft fluffy kind, more like the sideways hard kind that does the best to hamper your vision and pierce your cheeks. We're in no hurry though, and we take it slow as we work our way off the mountain. As we cross the final stile, everything seems to settle down again, little wind, it feels mild, no rain or snow and yet we feel battered. It was an unexpectedly sensory-filled 4 hours.

The Welsh 3000’s will wait - mountains tend to do that. But real life has a way of stepping in, reshuffling things whether you like it or not. Legs aren’t always perfect, forecasts don’t always play ball, and the big plans don’t always go. This wasn’t the day we set out to have, but it was the one we had in front of us, and for a micro-adventure, we just struck gold.