All the Trails in Wales

Bearded Lake

I hate cows. Especially magical ones.

November 1, 2016

Having had less-than-stunning success not getting lost when hiking from my own doorstep, but having seen good enough views walking through Happy Valley and the Aberdyfi Cemetery Walk to justify another try, I decided to go a bit farther afield and try to get to the Bearded Lake, Llyn Barfog.

Choose Your Own Legends

I'd found the lake on my map north east of town, up in the hills I'd crossed to get to Happy Valley. It was near something called 'Carn March Arthur', and the lake itself was also described in the 'Myths & Legends' section of the Visit Aberdyfi Official Visitor's Guide. That visitor's guide describes a fight between a Welsh water demon called an Afangc and King Arthur, ending in King Arthur's horse Llamrai smashing a hoof print into a stone (now Carn March Arthur), and either King Arthur killing the demon, or else dragging it to Cadair Idris and exiling it there in Llyn Cau.

Of course, that doesn't explain why it's called 'Bearded' Lake. Enter my 1938 guidebook, which says that "Sir John Rhys, in Celtic Folklore, [explains] that it was originally called Llyn-y-Barfog, the Bearded One's Lake, referring to some such mythical being as is common in various lake legends."

. . .Alright, so I don't know what that singularly unhelpful description means either. As far as I can tell, British lake legends are rife with hipsters. Thus hoping I would find a Bearded Lake artisanal hand-pressed free-range kombucha stand awaiting my arrival, I set off toward the lake.

Well this is unusually pleasant, surely I'll get lost soon?

So I walked east through town toward the Penhelig Arms until I hit the Wales Coastal path on my left, which cuts northwards up the hill just on the east of Aberdovey, and which I could follow most of the way to the Lake. After getting to the top of the first rise, the path turns right/north-east and the views open out to lovely broader views of the estuary. These were nice, but slightly hampered by a fog I could see rolling in.

Though there were signposts this time, I was glad I had my map, as I went over a stream, up a boggy hill, and cut diagonally up a hill directly toward a farm. At times it was very much not obvious where the sign was pointing to, and there was at least one signpost on the ground.

At the farm I turned left, and after walking down a small lane, found the most adorable little farmstand. Unfortunately it was currently empty, but the selection chalked up on the little slate sign makes me think that in the summer there's a bit more foot traffic on this path than there is in the late fall. I can't wait to try the eggs when they open though (see my post on Roadstands)!

A short way further down the road, the walk joined the single-lane road that comes out of the northern side of Aberdyfi - it turns out the worries I'd had about walking here were totally unfounded. I'd been worried that the road would be single lane, two-way, hedge-rowed and thus potentially dangerous (or at least scary) for walking. Although it was single-lane and two-way, there was plenty of grass along the edge for walking, and more importantly, I didn't pass a single car. Thank you late fall Tuesday.

While it might be different in the summer in terms of traffic - this section of road is worth walking on it's own. At first you have the estuary and the hill that Aberdyfi sits on behind you, and then as you make your way north-east, the whole of the Happy Valley and the hills leading up to southern Cadair Idris (it's still too far south for Cadair Idris itself) opens up.

It was really, really lovely. Until, of course, you run into the farm fence you need to scramble over or around to keep going. It's not the fence itself that's the problem - it's the many, many, many giant black cows in the field ahead of you that's the issue.

Cows, why did it have to be cows?

Now, many people probably would still find the view lovely - Happy Valley to the left, a short view of the estuary to the right, and a tiny stone farm house a short way in front of them, across a field filled with a pastoral vision of quietly grazing cows. Unfortunately, for me the story is different.

Here's where I have to admit something. I don't like cows. I feel like those big watery cow-eyes are just facades, that they're just playing at being dumb and docile, but as soon as you turn around they turn into ruthless killers. They're just too big - at any second I swear they might just turn and kill me by stomping on me with one casually misplaced giant hoof.

I'm embarrassed to admit that I once waited an hour in the Alps for a herd of cattle to saunter off the trail before I'd continue walking. I know it's absolutely ridiculous. I don't care, I don't like them. My mother thinks I may have bad childhood cow-on-the-street-related memories. Don't ask.

Anyway, you can imagine my worry on being confronted with a herd of giant cows in my path. A normal, cow-friendly individual might just hop along and think everything's fine, while the cows lay there chewing their cuds and quietly plotting said individual's destruction.

But what made this even more of a problem is that in addition to the other legends about Llyn Barfog I mentioned before, there's also a cow-related one, that seemingly justified my fears:

"On the banks of Llyn Barfog . . . fairies used to take the air at eventide together with their dogs and kine. On one occasion a farmer captured a cow whose progeny became famous throughout the land for their flesh, milk and butter. At length the cow was taken to the butcher, and the farmer and his neighbors gathered to see the slaughter of so fine a beast. But the fatal blow was never given, for when the butcher raised his hand to strike, a piercing cry drew every eye to one of the crags above Llyn Barfog, where a green-clad dame stood with uplifted arms and with a voice of thunder called — 'Come, yellow Anvil, stray horns, speckled one of the lake, and the hornless Dodin, arise, come home.'

At once the mystic cow and all her progeny fled at the topmost speed to the lake, into which the mortified farmer, who followed in pursuit, saw them descend."

That's right, apparently Bearded Lake is the legendary home of magical freaking cows, protected by terrifying green fairies. And here was a field, full of giant black cows and their calves, and I was supposed to just saunter on through like this was totally normal. Me, who doesn't like normal, non-magical non-fairy protected cows.

I actually thought about turning back. Then I thought about the fact that if I plan on walking great lengths in Wales in the future, I should probably get used to stupid cows.

So, I decided to try to get through them. Hopping the fence I put my head down and walked slowly toward the herd. I whistled a little, put my hands behind my back, and pretended to mind my own business. Because cows can tell.

Then, because I apparently think talking to animals is a reasonable thing to do, I said, out loud 'Don't worry ladies, nothing to see here. Just me walking through a giant herd of giant cows. [Casual whistle] Oh god, and their calves. Sure, you guys don't mind me walking between mother and calf right? That's cool, nobody in the animal kingdom ever attacks anybody who gets in between a mother and her children. This is great. Really. Great.'

And as I walked, I swear to you, every cow stopped moving, and looked up at me. Of course it's possibly because I was talking to them.

Anyway, I obviously made it because cows aren't actually dangerous outside of my own inexplicable fear of them. I even managed to stop and take a photo of them once I thought I was just close enough to the gate to beat them to it. After I left I'm certain they ran off with the fairies to laugh about me.

The Echo?

The rest of the hike was mostly wet and uneventful, but had nice points. After I got my breath back after bovine-related-terror, I took the right hand path past the farm house and through giant flocks of sheep (nope, not at all afraid of sheep). Unfortunately fog and mist had closed in on the neighboring hills - so what would have been lovely panoramic views on a sunny day were only to the next ridge. That said, following a wall and crossing through several gates I found the Carn March Arthur hoof print - and I loved the carved slate sign pointing to it that I imagine is probably just as historic.

A short way past this I turned left, and crossed over a ridge by following a short muddy path lined with autumn-rust colored moss, and found the Bearded Lake. I loved the red and orange reflections of the tiny pond in the fall; set against the green background of the hills encircling Happy Valley, it was a nice setting. Unfortunately it was so foggy everything was relatively muted.

Circling the lake to the south east on my way to find a cairn marked on my OS map, I suddenly ran across another slate marker - this one mysteriously said 'To Echo' and had a little hand pointing to the northeast. Always willing to follow random signs with no explanation on them (I would be a very easy horror movie/Alice in Wonderland target, so let's hope that never comes up), I walked in the direction of the hand until I hit a fence.

At this point I stopped and looked around. Since I had absolutely no idea what I was looking for, and similarly had no idea whether it had ever existed or continued to exist, I decided I should probably just make my way to the cairn marked on my map.

[Follow-up: When I got back home, I found nothing in any of my contemporary books or pamphlets explaining about the Echo sign. Enter my 1938 guidebook, which explained to me that if you follow the Echo sign, you'll eventually find a moor, at which point you yell to the hill opposite and your voice - you guessed it - will echo back to you. Thank you 70+ year old guidebook for being so helpful. Yet another place I need to return to.]

Looking for the cairn, I picked my way through scrubby bushes to the top of a small hill on the lake's east side. Finding it easily, I sat for a moment and wished for less fog. As it was, the view of the small lake was fine, but with the mist closing in it could clearly have been more interesting with a backdrop that wasn't grey.

So I decided to make my way back home to Aberdyfi. Thankfully on my way back the cows had dispersed, I didn't see any terrifying emerald fairies, and the Afangc seems not to have realized I was ever there.

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Moelfre near Barmouth

So this hike was great in 1938

November 4, 2016

After I got home from Dyffryn Ardudwy, I noticed that the pre-WWII guidebook we found in Hay-on-Wye had way more detail than more modern guides. Perusing the 1938 guidebook's references for the same general area north of Barmouth, I decided the next hike would be something it recommended. Surely mountains didn't change that much.

What I found was called 'Moelfre' in the book. According to the entry:

"The isolated hill to the north of Llyn Irddyn is Moelfre (1932 ft). It is 4 miles from Dyffryn station to the summit, which can be reached with ease and commands one of the best views in the district. The prospect includes the Rhinog Mountains, Drws Ardudwy Pass, the valley of the Nantcol, and Snowdon. On the slopes of Moelfre are two cromlechs, and the summit is crowned by a cairn."

Nice views and easily reached sounded good to me - since I felt like I was getting more up to real hiking by the day, but wasn't quite there yet, and P would love cromlechs and a cairn. So I checked the OS map and found a hill called Moelfre just north of Barmouth. There was a marked place to park on its slopes, and a bunch of paths formed a rough circular walk around the bottom. It looked to me like the south east corner would be an easy enough ascent.

So the next day off we went, bright and early, with long underwear and waterproofs at the ready - it was November, after all, when the days are short and the rain is cold.

Driving through the empty fun fair that is Barmouth in the fall, you wouldn't have thought that we were only one hard-to-find right turn and ten minutes away from the relative isolation we found halfway down a lengthy farm road that we had to open several cattle gates to get to.

Of course, it might have been isolated simply because Moelfre and the more easterly hills were so covered in clouds that it looked as dark as dusk. But remembering one time I was hiking in Northern Ireland with a Northern Irish friend and an American, and the other American and I had asked him in the morning if we shouldn't check the weather before we went, and he said 'This is Ireland. It's going to rain. If you wait for a sunny day we'll never go.' So, figuring this was Wales, off we went.

Circling the hill was relatively uneventful - I learned that some of the cromlechs and monuments I had been trying to reach walking from the burial chambers in Dyffryn Ardudwy were just down the hill to the right - but not wanting to hop fences and waste energy, we kept walking, passing an 'ancient settlement' per our map, up the south west slope of the hill.

After passing the larger Craig y Dinas far to our right and some rocks that may have been the standing stones our map referred to, we started to keep an eye out on the left for the trail on the map that ascended the back slope of the hill. The hills and mountains to the east really started to open up - we could also see two lakes, and still had a view of the sea. With the yellow and red of the fall grass, and the green slopes and blue lakes on some of the far hills, the scene really was beautiful, in particular since the dark clouds had broken up into scattered bright sunlight.

Of course, admiring the view was when I suddenly noticed there was a giant, solitary raincloud that seemed to be chasing us up the path. Taking our rain gear our of the pack, we put everything on fast enough just before the first drops fell. Although the rain did end up being torrential, luckily it passed after a few minutes, and it was strange to watch the one rain cloud seem to run at it's own pace for several miles into the distant hills.

On we went, while I searched for the path up the hill. Over the stream. Past the broken down farm house. Past the other stream. Past the rock formations. Past the contour lines that really should mean we've passed it. Past another stream.

At this point I started to wonder where the heck the path was. Past another stream. Uh oh. I could see the 'we've gone waaaay too far if you walk all the way here path' getting closer and closer. Giving up, I just decided we needed to take the bull by the horns and climb the thing. Crossing my fingers that if this was land we weren't supposed to be on that maybe no one would see us - since there wasn't a soul to be seen for miles - I went left and started zig-zagging my way up the hill.

The terrain was steep and uneven, but not terrible. There were criss-crossing sheep paths everywhere. Nevertheless, my poor office worker's lungs were exhausted when we reached the wall that formed the ridged spine of the sleeping dragon's back (in case it's unclear, the hill is the sleeping dragon). We had walked three quarters of the way around Moelfre, and with the summit somewhere to the left, I led P up to where the rise started to look like it would require some serious scrambling - there were larger rockfalls on a very steep (but by no means even remotely impassable for someone who was more motivated than I was at that moment) slope.

That's where I stopped. Mostly I was really confused about where the path on the map was. I couldn't figure it out, and because of that I wasn't sure what to do - so I climbed up the wall, not just taking in the view and resting for a minute - but trying to check all the landmarks I could see with the map.

After many minutes of staring, I was convinced that I should be sitting right on the path, or at least very close to it. Maybe the wall was new, maybe it was a typo, the path really did look weirdly straight for a map like this, maybe . . .

Whatever, I decided, let's climb the rest of the stupid hill, I don't know where we are but I can see up the hill, so let's go there. So scrambling a somewhat tougher bit of steep terrain with some loose cantaloupe-sized rocks for a few minutes, we suddenly arrived at a giant circular slate stone wall, which encircled another stone wall and effectively crowned a small corner of the summit. It was pretty cool.

While P explored it, I stared at the map. Because cool or not, what the heck was this? This thing is ginormous and there's nothing on here. I guess there's this one little circle thing, but how can you map a broken down tiny cabin and put a name on it, but this is just an unnamed circle?

It was at this point that I started to question whether I was even on the right hill. Maybe I had found a hill in an alternate reality. . . Maybe I was hallucinating. Or maybe the map was just screwing with me. Or maybe I really am an idiot.

(As it ultimately turned out, it's that I'm an idiot, but I didn't learn why until I took a course at Plas y Brenin two weeks later.)

After P had had his fun, we went and sat in the cairn that marked the summit. Or at least we thought that's where we were - for all I know we were in a high rise apartment building and I was just reading the map upside down. The wind off the sea had kicked up at the summit and it was now properly freezing, and so we hunkered down behind a windbreak-wall and had lunch. When we poked our heads over the top, the views on all sides were gorgeous. The stunning and still wild Rhinog mountains which no roads cross stood imposingly to the east, to the west we were even with scattered white clouds and could see swathes of rain falling in between the sunlight on the Irish Sea, and to the north and northwest were more of Snowdonia and the Llyn peninsula.

But it was really really cold. So we headed back down the way we had come up. Having lost all navigational confidence, I checked out the two stiles that crossed the wall on the south of the hill's summit - they didn't look like they had paths leading to or from them anywhere.

So we climbed back down to where I had stopped to study the map sitting on the wall. I looked at the map. I walked north-east down a rapidly steepening slope toward another wall that was at a right angle to the first, certain that this is where the map said there was a path. But when the slope got to the point where I felt like I was at the top edge of a diamond ski run, my spider sense tingled and told me I was insane, I would be rolling down this hill before I would be walking down it.

Recognizing that it's ok to turn around sometimes, in particular during those sometimes when you are about to die, I turned around. Following the perpendicular wall back up to the spine of the dragon, we then picked our way back down the less steeply-sloped ridge of the hill. Halfway down it started absolutely gushing down rain.

Even though we were absolutely dripping (but not soaked - thank you waterproofing) and vaguely grumpy when we got to more even ground at the bottom of the hill, it was really wonderful not to have rolled down the mountain. Turning left, heads down to the driving rain we made our way through fields that actually had a path in them, and - glory of glories - it was a path actually marked on my map.

Once we had a good view of the hill side I had thought there was a path on, I stopped to try to figure out what was what. The hill, while not entirely sheer, was not something that looked passable - at least not at the angle that the map said the path went at. There was a greener gash straight down one part that could have been a road, but anything going down a road straight down a hill like that wouldn't survive. Scratching our heads, we trudged on through the rain.

Although at this point we were just trying to get back to the car, the Cwm Nantcol Valley that we were now passing through on a narrow country lane, was really quite stunning. The fall hills were a brownish-red, and since the rain had stopped, the sunlight on the fields made a lovely contrast to the purple-grey mountains staring down from the east.

Apparently not much has changed since 1938:

"The road is rough and narrow, there are at least 11 gates to be opened and closed, and much low-gear driving is necessary, but the scenery is magnificent. In places the valleys lined with fine beeches, while higher up into the mountains are broad views of bare hills above, with the silvery ribbon of the Nantcol winding through its fertile plain below."

As the hundreds of sheep and cows of all breeds and colors intently watched our progress, we climbed westward up some slight hills, until we got back to the car. Warmer, but still somewhat disgruntled by the Mystery of the Path that went Straight Down a Cliff, we drove back out of the wilds of Moelfre, through many cattle gates, and toward as much of civilization as you can find in Barmouth. Luckily for us, all our mysteries would be solved in only a few weeks (and boy did we feel stupid)!

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Plas y Brenin

What direction are Crimpiau and Craig Wen again?

November 18, 2016

Having tired of getting lost again, and again, and again, and again, and again, I looked up where to take navigation courses in Wales. One of the places I found was the National Mountain Center, Plas-y-Brenin.

The course offerings - everything from kayaking, to winter mountaineering, to rock climbing, to orienteering, looked great. But the time frames - usually a week or two long, and the format - large groups, didn't speak to me. In particular I somehow doubted that a group of British people with even a basic grasp of how their system works would take kindly to the stupid American couple who had not even the slightest idea how to work an OS map (as evidenced by past experience), but professed to have hiked all their lives. I didn't foresee that going well.

But then I noticed in the fine print that you could hire one of their instructors for small group lessons, basically for whatever you wanted. I emailed back and forth with them a few times to find out whether they could give just P and I navigation lessons. Although the price was steep per day - really it cost the same as taking a week-long course, and with personalized attention I was sure we'd get more out of it (and I would only have to make a fool out of myself to one person, rather than 15).

Of course, not having the internet at home meant that our booking was extended over an abnormally lengthy amount of time - and that I didn't really fully explain what it was I wanted. Luckily these people are professionals, because we basically showed up just wanting 'navigation lessons'. But in hindsight I still don't know how I could have explained our problem except in person - 'we tried to find this path on Moelfre, but it didn't exist'.

But first, we have to get there

First things first though. Plas-y-Brenin is located about a 2 hour drive north of Aberdyfi, in Capel Curig, smack dab in the middle of Snowdonia National Park. I booked our lesson for Friday and Saturday, so we would be driving up Thursday night.

So of course, on Tuesday morning our windshield wipers stopped working. We scoured Aberystwyth for a mechanic who could fix the problem quickly - but were ultimately sent back to a mechanic in Aberdyfi. Shockingly, the part necessary to fix a 2004 American-made car's windshield wipers was not immediately available. Luckily, one mechanic in Aberystwyth did show P a trick as to how to temporarily get the wipers to work - you had to go under the hood and yank one part back into another part.

He mentioned that it wasn't a permanent solution - but should be enough as long as it didn't rain too much. Surely, living in Wales, this wouldn't be a problem, and maybe it wouldn't rain on the way to Capel Curig. . .

So on Thursday we packed our bags with all the requisite things Plas-y-Brenin told us to bring with us - an OS map of the area, waterproof trousers, sturdy hiking boots, etc - and set off into the wild north of Wales. And everything was fine until, an hour later, just outside of Blaenau Ffestinog, it started to pour buckets of rain from the sky.

P turned on the windshield wipers, with the temporary fix in place. For two minutes, everything seemed fine and we continued on. Then the windshield wipers just stopped.

I don't know if you've ever been suddenly struck blind while on a highway going 50mph, but given the lack of road lights, other cars, or houses along the road - that's basically what this felt like. I frantically turned on the hazard lights, and opened the passenger side window and was greeted with a liter of water to the face. P could see nothing out of the windshield, but I could see how far we were from the side of the road - and the rock face that lined it. P slowed as much as he could so we wouldn't get rear ended. I yelled commands like 'Go two feet left!' and 'you're driving right on the line!, go 6 inches right' so P wouldn't drive over the middle line and potentially off a cliff he couldn't see.

After two minutes of terror suddenly, thankfully, I yelled 'Oh my god, turn off here! There's a road to the left here we can park on here ohmygod go left NOW!!!'. We parked for a moment on the side road, and P got out and did the temporary fix the mechanic had showed him. We decided to wait and hope that the rain would stop so we could keep going without the windshield wipers.

Luckily we were subjected only to sporadic downpours, every 15 minutes or so - and were able to make decent headway in between, before having to repeat some frantic version of the scene above - never knowing whether we were about to drive off a cliff or into a wall due to the pitch blackness all around us.

Unfortunately, by the time we got to Betws-y-Coed, the wipers were only working for three wipes before turning off, and we actually had to stop at the beginning and the end of town. Capel Curig wasn't far off - but we were in the middle of mountains - not being able to see and potentially driving off into a field is a very different consequence than potentially driving off a mountain.

P insisted that we should go even though there was a light drizzle, saying he could sort of see the road anyway, and Capel Curig was only a mile of two off. When we finally pulled into the Plas-y-Brenin parking lot (having been barely able to make out the sign to get there), we breathed a sigh of relief, but also hoped that the rain would hold off for the next two days - since the people booking the lessons had been very specific that we were supposed to bring our own transport. And navigating in a car you can't see out of is one thing - but doing it with a person you've never met, who is supposed to be your guide to navigation - that's another thing altogether.

The National Mountain Center

If there's one thing that I love, it's outdoors schools - something about likeminded people, love of the outdoors, education and a good pint at the end of the day in front of a fire. Plas-y-Brenin had all of the above - and also provided a wide range of accommodation options. The dorm accommodation we chose certainly wasn't 5 star hotel standard, but it was better than a bunk house, meals were included, and there was a pub with a fabulous view of the Snowdon horseshoe, on one side, and of a practice ski slope that didn't require snow on the other. It felt kind of like a New Hampshire ski lodge.

We had a nice dinner in the pub the night before our lesson - complete with Welsh purple moose ale - and in the morning we had a prepared breakfast in the common dining area, and the school provided a bagged lunch for when you were out for the day.

We had our first meeting with our instructor - Karl - who clearly was suffering from the fact that I had been entirely unclear about what it was we wanted him to instruct us in. But after a short discussion - it was clear that we wanted more than the beginner's course, but less than the intermediate course. Something that would explain the absolute basics of hiking in the UK to Americans, but then also would include tips and tricks for people have actually done a significant amount of navigation in the past.

Also, we kind of just wanted someone to hike with us and explain anything that came to mind while we were actually there.

And then we learned how stupid we actually were

So on that understanding, we headed out. Within ten minutes, Karl had basically solved our main problem slash misunderstanding - i.e. why the green line on the map of Moelfre wasn't actually a path.

After walking across the kayak lake from the Center, we walked along a small path. Karl pointed out some guidepoints, and a green line just like the one on Moelfre. He told us to look out for certain things and that we should follow the path were were on to that path.

So we walked for a few minutes. Then we took a turn. Clearly we had walked past whatever path we were supposed to take. We stopped. He asked us to find where the path was. We pointed out the stone wall that was marked on the map on one side. I pointed to another stone wall. Clearly we were at the right corner. But there was no path.

He let us screw around for a few minutes before he explained. Apparently these Ordinance Survey maps (among many other things), show two important things for hikers - paths and rights of way. But the key piece of information is that these two things are not the same.

Now this didn't make sense to either of us. How can you have a right of way but not a path? Apparently it's a historical issue - the Ordinance Survey is quite old (from the viewpoint of an American anyway). When they originally went to a particular place to map it out, they looked at all historical legal rights of way and marked them down.

Now, that could mean that 100 years ago Grandma Jones lived on Plot A, and her next door neighbor Mr. Jones (no relation - everyone's called Jones here) let her walk across a particular part of his property Plot B to get to church on Plot C. After she died, no one used that right of way for 100 years and so it became overgrown and other paths took entirely different directions. But that right of way - inconvenient as it may be now as it currently goes through a swamp - still exists.

I suddenly started having flashbacks to my Property class in law school - but it all made sense. Green lines (dashed, dotted, etc) show rights of way - but unless there's some form of a black line (dashed, crossed, etc) showing a path underneath it - there's no guarantee that a path actually exists.

The path down the sheer side of Moelfre was likely some kind of historical anomaly for miners or farmers or something, needing to get things from the top of the hill to the bottom 100 years ago. Now you can technically walk that way too - but why you would given there's no actual path is beyond me.

P and I laughed hysterically at how stupid we were - and I wondered exactly what else we were going to spend our time on for two more days since we'd had our main question answered within 15 minutes of our course.

There's always more to learn

Of course, there's always more to learn. In particular for Americans in Wales, given our conception of property rights is apparently very different than here.

As we made our way across the main road to Crimpiau, I asked asked about what happens if a farmer, for example, doesn't like having you on his land, and maybe you've strayed off the right of way. I may have alluded to the fact that at home I wouldn't be surprised if I got shot. And that a farmer would likely be within his rights to shoot me in a lot of states. Karl, looking a bit more than shocked, told us that more than likely the farmer would be the one to go to jail for simply pointing a gun at you in the first place - never mind for shooting you. Most likely, at the worst, he'd tell you exactly how it was you were going to get off of his land.

While the Countryside Code dictates all kinds of things for hikers when passing along other's land, you aren't committing a crime if you stray (mistakenly) off a right of way, you're really breaking civil statutes. But without actually creating any damage on the property you're on, there's not a tremendous amount of recourse to be had for someone concerned (I'm obviously doing my own summary here - and Karl was very clear about not doing any of these things regardless - please don't take this as being given license to run wild across other people's property), so often it's better for property owners just to tell you to get the hell off their property rather than do anything more serious - after all, usually people just strayed by mistake.

This type of eminently reasonable thinking was altogether confusing, so at a pass to the south of Crimpiau we moved off of 'stupid American questions' and played a navigation game. Having learned how to use our step count to determine distances on a map, Karl marked different spots for P and I to find. Using landmarks from the map and our footcount, we made our way to the spots, and then he'd mark another further on.

All this was actually very useful and practical, but by now it was close to lunchtime so we sat down and had our snacks. We then plotted a course to the summit, with Karl stopping every so often to point out certain way markers for us. Halfway up, it started to hail. By the top it was hailing sideways, and we couldn't really hear each other for the wind. Hiding behind the summit where we could talk, Karl pointed out that we hadn't really hiked the 'main peaks' of Snowdonia and then pointed out to us what the more known peaks were from our current vantage point. Since neither P nor I were actually aware of what the 'main peaks' were, we didn't really care about the fact that we weren't on top of one of them - one of the great benefits of having nothing to prove.

On to Craig Wen

P and I then took turns plotting a course to nearby Craig Wen. On the way we learned that people hiking in these hills actually stop to talk to you. Not just a passing 'hello' - but seemingly a full conversation. We learned from one older gentleman that he lived nearby, that he was a farmer, that he was out for a quick walk that when he used to take it 20 years ago he would never see a soul, that this was the first hail of the season, that we clearly were from the Mountain Center, and several other pieces of information before we made our way on.

I'm very much not used to this level of friendliness. It was disarming - and nice.

Nothing much happened on the way to Craig Wen except that in an effort to take the least inclined way up possible, I basically made us unnecessarily walk 75% of the way around the hill before getting to the top. Also, it hailed. And the wind was incredible. In any case, at that point I handed the baton to P, and he guided us back down to Plas-y-Brenin, partly through some fairly uncomfortable swamp-ish land. We really are quite the navigation team.

Not having had enough, Karl - acting on the fact that I had asked a lot of questions about a particular step-by-step way of using a compass and a map to get from one place to another, by orienting yourself, turning a dial on the compass and lining up lines along the edge of it to the OS map - then had us do a quick orienteering exercise in the pitch black backyard of the center. I believe I truly made a statement as to my competence by putting the headlamp that he gave me on upside down, and then asking for help as to why the light didn't seem to work.

I'd like to think I made up for it by executing the exercise quite well given I hadn't originally understood in the slightest what he was talking about, but there's something about not being able to figure out a simple headlamp that makes me doubt that that's the case.

All in all - it was a great day. Although I was exhausted enough that I barely had it in me to stay up until 9 for a pint in the near-empty pub (all the other classes had ended on Friday, and we were the only Friday to Saturday guests), I was looking forward to Day 2 when maybe we would get less lost than on Day 1.

And that's sort of what happened.

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