Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2013/12/17
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]North Wales has the most accessibly dramatic views of any place in which I have lived. Sure, the Rockies have higher mountains, India has better color, and Maine has better seashores. But from my home in Menai Bridge, just across the Menai Strait from Bangor, a half hours drive could take you to the Snowdonia mountains, medieval castles, bucolic fields, thousand year old cathedrals and quaint shopping centers. >From my diary of 25 years ago. I'll send a few pictures shortly. "Neighbors tell us this winter has been very unWelsh-like. I've mowed the grass three times and Maggie's 50 daffodil plants are flowering nicely. Why in one period we even had eight uninterrupted days of sunshine. People vacation in this part of Wales for two reasons, water sports and hill hiking. Even in the sun it is still too chilly for windsurfing so Maggie suggested we settle on a hill hike. Actually we decided on a gentle stroll and, naive about the nature of the Welsh mountains, drove the 10 miles to the Ogwen Valley, our nearest entry point to the Snowdonia park. Llyn Ogwen is a glacial lake that sits in a valley carved out by the retreating ice. The only settlement near by is Idwal Cottage, a hamlet so small it isn't even on the map. In fact all it consists of is a YMCA hostel, a snack bar, and a mountain rescue center complete with ambulance, helicopter, and all terrain vehicles. That should have given us our first clue. We learned only too late that the main reason people come here is to take some of Wales' most difficult and demanding, but magnificently scenic walks. We followed a gentle path that promised an easy ramble around a classically formed glacial bowl named Cwm Idwal. Joining us were families with children skipping along next to their parents, old men walking dogs, and young marrieds with babies perched on their backpacks. This should be a piece of cake. At the center of Cwm Idwal there was a small lake. Which way to go? By this time most of the family folk had disappeared. A couple of hikers walked purposefully by us. "Follow them" suggested Maggie. "They seem to know the way." That was the second mistake of the day. The path grew narrower, then became just a series of rocks that had to be stepped on precisely to avoid the muddy plots between them. The upward slope turned into a rocky staircase. Far ahead we could see climbers on the rockface of the cwm looking like little gecko lizards working their way up a vertical wall. In about half an hour of hard breathing we were up to their base camp. Extending straight up from the camp was a sheer rock wall about 1000 feet high, locally called the Idwal Slab. At the base a bevy of climbers were laying out rope, checking equipment and organizing all of the esoterica necessary for flouting the laws of gravity. A couple of young men came over to us armed with a video camera and asked if we would mind being interviewed. They were from the Snowdonia Tourist Board and were gathering material to promote the joys of climbing in the Welsh Alps. I guess they decided if geezers such as we could make it this far then anyone could. Modest Maggie declined but I am to be immortalized on their Web site. Where does the trail go from here? The cameramen pointed up the rockface but then took pity on us and suggested a more gradually sloping route to the top. Ahead was the jointed cleft of Twill Du which splits the peak into two points. In Welsh this means Devil's Kitchen. The gradually sloping route turned into a series of rock scrambles that took us above the snow line. The spring weather was melting the snow which soaked the rocks and ran into the channel between the twin peaks. We found ourselves fording shallow streams of melt water. These eventually combined into a narrow but very high waterfall breaking the trail into two parts. The gap was too far to jump although there is a local tradition that says jumping the gap brings good luck. That must be the case since missing the jump certainly brings bad luck. Maggie suggested that we work our way uphill until we found a better spot and I certainly agreed. After a series of wet, slippery stumbling attempts we crossed the gap a few hundred yards upstream then found our way back to the minimal trail. A steep climb later we stood below the peak. As promised, the view was magnificent. Perhaps not as impressive as Edmund Hillary's from Mt. Everest, but far greener. The evidence of glacial activity is so clear that you wonder why it took geologists so long to work out the mechanism that created these hollowed hill faces and scoured rocks. For years people thought the Welsh mountains were the remains of extinct volcano cones. Even Charles Darwin was fooled. When geologists finally did figure out that ice, not fire, carved out the mountains, they gave the layers of rock Welsh names. The pre-Cambrian and Cambrian epochs were named after Cambria, the ancient name for Wales. Both the Ordovician and the Silurian epochs were named after Welsh tribes, the Ordovices and the Silures. Llyn Idwal, a long way below, reflected the gray cliffs but ripples in the water suggested that a wind was rising and it might be prudent to descend. The downhill trek was physically harder than the uphill part. Maggie claims it easier to climb than descend and the strain on the joints is a lot less. I certainly agree. We nodded to other hikers coming up the path secure in the knowledge that we had completed, albeit inadvertently, one of the more demanding passages in Snowdonia. By the time we reached the car we decided it was time for a cuppa tea. We are acculturating fast." Larry Z