Day 87
Holyhead to South Stack: 4 miles
View of the day: The Isle of Man and County Down and the Snowdonia range, from the top of Holyhead Mountain
Reason: I understand on a clear day, these can be seen from the top of Holyhead Mountain. Today was really the opposite of such a day. I had a great time imagining them on the blank canvas of monotone grey fog though. Really I did.
So, today was one of those days that makes me wonder what, if anything, will ever make me come to my senses when it comes to preparing appropriately for the day's weather. Not only am I currently on an island, off the coast of an island, off the coast of Wales, but I tried to climb a mountain on the coast of the island off the island in the fog. Which I don't feel like I need to tell you at this point, is a stupid thing to do when you've left both your compass, your GPS and your OS map in the car, because surely the teeny tiny map in the walking guidebook will be fine.
I really don't know what to do with myself sometimes.
At first, as usual, everything's fine
Of course everything started off perfectly fine - getting from the breakwater up toward the small park at the base of Holyhead Mountain afforded some views back toward Anglesey. While I walked toward the lighthouse at North Stack, I could clearly see that some sea fog was settling on Holyhead Mountain, but for some reason I told myself that it was pretty high up and so I'd just be going up into it and coming back down, and the path would probably be obvious.
So, the path wasn't remotely obvious. It was at first, passing a stone hut just like it said in my guidebook, and then climbing climbing climbing and eventually descending a bit to arrive at North Stack. But then it basically doubled back. And while there marker posts, the fog was descending. And as happens in the fog, they were becoming nearly impossible to see except when I stumbled right onto them.
At one point I mistakenly walked along a side path, eventually backtracking when I realized that the path seemed to lead along the side of a virtually sheer drop and a rockslide. But I went back the opposite direction, took a different turn and figured out how to track my ascent even in the fog to where the book described the path as turning again - just below the peak of the mountain.
Until, of course, everything isn't fine
I was also passing a few other hikers now and then, which made me feel better, because the fog seemed to be truly closing in, and it was making me feel weirdly claustrophobic for being outside on the side of a mountain over the sea. Although I could vaguely perceive this must all be gorgeous views and wide open spaces all around me, I couldn't shake the feeling of the fog just closing in on me on all sides. It was really unnerving.
When I came to what looked like a crossroads with two nondescript small brick buildings on it, I took a long look at my guidebook, decided I knew where I was and turned right. The path went down some more into a longer stretch of nameless, faceless, featureless and entirely landmarker lacking foggy moonscape, until finally it reached a little hut of sorts. It had a warning sign on it about being unstable, so I didn't go into it.
At this point, I couldn't entirely figure out where I was. There were supposed to have been giant poles that I passed, but I hadn't seen any of them for the fog. There was also supposed to be a whole giant lighthouse somewhere out there in whatever the direction the water was (I thought it was to my right), and on hearing a few short blasts of a foghorn, I suddenly realized why such tools were entirely necessary. Otherwise I had literally absolutely no idea where I was - and I wasn't even stuck in a boat in fog. And the fog seemed to be getting thicker by the minute - I'd at least had 20 or 30 feet of visibility before, and now I seemed to barely have that.
Anyway, having heard a bit of foghorn, I judged where the water was, where the trail in my minimal map was, and where the parking lot that I'd asked P to wait for me in was, and I took a left turn toward what I hoped would eventually be the point off of which the lighthouse sits. As I kept walking, the path petered out to almost nothing, and I noticed I hadn't passed another person in a while. Then it split with no signs. Then I basically just decided that I knew enough to keep the sound of the foghorn to my right, and that that meant the water was to my right and so I was headed the right direction.
I eventually saw a sign for a path that the Wales Coast Path occasionally follows, and then I saw one of the giant poles my guidebook mentioned. I got a little more confident I was going the right way, though the path turned to a paved path which I didn't see anywhere.
And then suddenly, I was momentarily terrified. If you've ever seen Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, then you might remember the scene where Joel is following Clementine down a city block to try to get her to come home. He runs down the street after her, and she gets farther away, but he finds that the end of the city block he's run to has become the beginning of the block he'd run from. He was confusingly back to where he'd started, though he'd run in a straight line.
So, the reason I bring this up, is I suddenly found myself arriving back at the crossroads with the two nondescript small brick buildings. I'd arrived here on the exact same path that I'd left on. If you can imagine how disorienting it would be to think you were walking in a straight line, only to come back to the same place you started 20 minutes before, and to have absolutely no idea how it happened, well, then you can understand the tiny amount of claustrophobic panic welling up in my stomach.
My mind started to go a tiny bit crazy, and I started calculating how cold it was (pretty cold actually), how damp it was (pretty damp actually) and if worse came to worst could I weave myself a temporary shelter out of low lying heather and scrub brush and survive the night by using the walls of the small brick buildings as a windbreak. It might not be totally apparent how crazy this was to anyone who doesn't know that this part of Holyhead Mountain is pretty much covered in tourists, and if I were weaving myself a shelter there'd probably be about 100 people passing within 25 feet of me every 2 hours or so, so maybe they'd be able to help.
After I got over the initial shock of being completely and totally disoriented, I thought through the above scenario and realized that if I just waited long enough, someone would surely pass by who had an actual map and had made preparations like a normal human being who's planning on walking in the fog. Which is how, shortly thereafter, I found myself walking behind a mother and her two teenage daughters, trying to stay far enough behind them that I didn't look like I was the creep stalker I actually was, but close enough that I didn't lose them in the fog. When one daughter started slowing down to look at things, though, I knew I had to just ask them where I should go because oddly stopping in the middle of the trail for no reason whenever they did would probably look kind of weird.
So I did, and they pointed me onward, and then I arrived back at the hut with the sign on it saying you shouldn't go into it, where I'd decided to turn left last time. Again, I was totally disoriented, but this time I wasn't alone - and I just asked the kindly older Irish couple who were looking at me like I was an idiot because seriously, the lighthouse is literally right there and you just come right up the steps and. . . Oh, yes, you totally can't see where it connects to the path when you're walking at it in this direction, can you? And they pointed me in the right direction (several times because I kept looking back for reassurance, and I think they were laughing at me but who cares).
All's Well that Ends Well, Even if I Got to See Absolutely Nothing
And I walked down the steps, and hit a road, and much to my delight, suddenly a previously invisible and silent throng of innumerable people appeared out of the fog. I'm still not sure what this number of people thought they were doing coming to see a lighthouse off the coast on a foggy day, but then I was there so who am I to judge, really.
As I walked further up the path, which was now a road, I passed more and more people. I still actually had no understanding of where the parking lot was that I'd told P to meet me at, but I figured this was a road and it would eventually take me somewhere with a phone I could call him from. And then I came onto the Visitor Centre, and there he was sitting in the parking lot.
And I realized at that moment, given the 50 cars and hundred visitors, exactly how easy and scenic this hike should have been. Hopefully when I get back tomorrow I'll get better views - for now, 4 miles is more than enough for the day.
