Total adventures this year: 4
Llyn Y Fan Fawr:
4th October 2014
Wild-Camp:27
As we've been becoming fed up of going to the same places all the time we decided to take a trip to Llyn y Fan Fawr, but not the the more well known route from Dan Yr Ogof but from a small village further down the valley called Cwmgiedd.
As I had wanted to use the weekends wild camp as training for the upcoming Point to Point events that I've entered I'd packed my bergen with extra gear including my tent and 3 tarps, to make the weight up to the required 40lb, on top of this I had my food for the weekend plus 2 litres of water. I intended to collect more water once I arrived at Llyn y Fan Fawr. Also the weekend was used as a navigation practice exercise. Neither of us had been to Llyn y Fan Fawr before so we needed to at least keep track of our position on the map. On the way up I made one or two mistakes judging the distance we'd covered due to the fact that I've NEVER used a 1:50,000 scale map before, I've always used 1:25.000, I'd thought we'd gone further along the route than we had and got a little disorientated for a bit. Also features that I would have expected to be on a map (and are on the 1:25,000) weren't there, so when we came to a massive wall which was the Swansea Valley equivalent of Hadrians wall and then a waterfall which was about 50 foot tall and neither were on the map I couldn't work out our exact location, but I was only ever around 200m out (I think). One good thing about this mountain is that there were no hordes of people, during the whole day we only saw 3 groups and even that was from a distance, although as we descended the 'staircase' to Llyn y Fan Fawr from the top of Fan Brycheiniog we caught one group up but they weren't camping there. We arrived at Llyn y Fan Fawr at 17:39, 5 hours and 20 minutes after we'd left. No records broken but we weren't out for a race, more time with the Bergen on our backs and practice. We'd spent a lot of time viewing our surroundings and enjoying the solitude of the area. The large amount of shake holes kept grabbing our attention, both the huge ones that needed photographing and the small ones which were just waiting to collapse. We constantly had to watch out footing in some places.
We walked around almost the entire lake before finding a suitably dry and almost flat area to set up our bivvys for the night, but once we'd set up it was time to sit, eat food, drink coffee with a large quantity of Southern Comfort and just sit chatting watching the sun go down and enjoying the countryside. At about 21:30hrs we noticed what looked like flares around the M.O.D. area, this went on for around 90 minutes.
In the morning I woke just in time to see the sunrise and was able to take several photographs. If I'd been in a tent I would have missed it. After some faffing during packing we set off for home. We didn't go back around the lake and up the 'staicase', instead we carried on around the base of the 'cliff' then scrambled up a narrow gulley to the top. This time we knew our way but still navigated our way back, I was able to pin point our location to within 10-50 metres at any time during our way back, which still took 4.5 hours. This has now become our favourite mountain, for the feeling of isolation and the challenging walk up there. We will have to find an easier way up if Squatt is to come with us.
4th October 2014
Wild-Camp:27
As we've been becoming fed up of going to the same places all the time we decided to take a trip to Llyn y Fan Fawr, but not the the more well known route from Dan Yr Ogof but from a small village further down the valley called Cwmgiedd.
As I had wanted to use the weekends wild camp as training for the upcoming Point to Point events that I've entered I'd packed my bergen with extra gear including my tent and 3 tarps, to make the weight up to the required 40lb, on top of this I had my food for the weekend plus 2 litres of water. I intended to collect more water once I arrived at Llyn y Fan Fawr. Also the weekend was used as a navigation practice exercise. Neither of us had been to Llyn y Fan Fawr before so we needed to at least keep track of our position on the map. On the way up I made one or two mistakes judging the distance we'd covered due to the fact that I've NEVER used a 1:50,000 scale map before, I've always used 1:25.000, I'd thought we'd gone further along the route than we had and got a little disorientated for a bit. Also features that I would have expected to be on a map (and are on the 1:25,000) weren't there, so when we came to a massive wall which was the Swansea Valley equivalent of Hadrians wall and then a waterfall which was about 50 foot tall and neither were on the map I couldn't work out our exact location, but I was only ever around 200m out (I think). One good thing about this mountain is that there were no hordes of people, during the whole day we only saw 3 groups and even that was from a distance, although as we descended the 'staircase' to Llyn y Fan Fawr from the top of Fan Brycheiniog we caught one group up but they weren't camping there. We arrived at Llyn y Fan Fawr at 17:39, 5 hours and 20 minutes after we'd left. No records broken but we weren't out for a race, more time with the Bergen on our backs and practice. We'd spent a lot of time viewing our surroundings and enjoying the solitude of the area. The large amount of shake holes kept grabbing our attention, both the huge ones that needed photographing and the small ones which were just waiting to collapse. We constantly had to watch out footing in some places.
We walked around almost the entire lake before finding a suitably dry and almost flat area to set up our bivvys for the night, but once we'd set up it was time to sit, eat food, drink coffee with a large quantity of Southern Comfort and just sit chatting watching the sun go down and enjoying the countryside. At about 21:30hrs we noticed what looked like flares around the M.O.D. area, this went on for around 90 minutes.
In the morning I woke just in time to see the sunrise and was able to take several photographs. If I'd been in a tent I would have missed it. After some faffing during packing we set off for home. We didn't go back around the lake and up the 'staicase', instead we carried on around the base of the 'cliff' then scrambled up a narrow gulley to the top. This time we knew our way but still navigated our way back, I was able to pin point our location to within 10-50 metres at any time during our way back, which still took 4.5 hours. This has now become our favourite mountain, for the feeling of isolation and the challenging walk up there. We will have to find an easier way up if Squatt is to come with us.
Fan Fawr
20th September 2014
Wild-Camp:26
Taken by Strider, edited by Baldy.
As both of us have been getting fed up of the crowds that go up Pen-y-fan we decided to go the opposite direction and go up Fan Fawr, neither of us had been up there before. The journey up was pleasant and instead of fighting our way through crowds of people coming of Pen-y-fan, we had the mountain to ourselves and didn't see a single person.
We got to the summit by the cairn, which was our intended campsite and began setting up our bivi's. Strider was using his poncho as a tarp and I used my DD tarp. By the time we's set up is was dark. We put our food on to cook and just chatted. The mist was so bad that only one of us ventured away from camp at a time, because visibility was about 5 metres, if we'd both left camp, it may have taken a while to find it again. We messed around with the head torches in the mist, creating sky shadows and trying to photograph them, but this proved very difficult without a tripod and only having a compact camera.
At about 5:30am I was woken by voices beside the cairn. They turned out to be a 4 man military patrol, one of them asked the patrol leader "Are they staff?" refering to Strider and I. The patrol leader replied with "No they're just a couple of ramblers." Fifteen minutes later I picked up my phone to check the time and as soon as I switched it on a soldier who was standing with his feet almost touching my bivi bag said "Are you staff or civvies?". I jumped out of my skin. I hadn't heard him before he opened his mouth. I wonder how long he'd been standing there wondering whether to ask or not and wondering if he'd caught staff sleeping on the job.
In the morning after breakfast we were just about to start packing up when 2 walkers came over the ridge, as they got closer I looked puzzled at one of them and said "Is that *****?" It was and we had quite a long chat. You know who you are and it was great seeing you again.
We packed up and went the long way down looking for a couple or geocaches as we went.
20th September 2014
Wild-Camp:26
Taken by Strider, edited by Baldy.
As both of us have been getting fed up of the crowds that go up Pen-y-fan we decided to go the opposite direction and go up Fan Fawr, neither of us had been up there before. The journey up was pleasant and instead of fighting our way through crowds of people coming of Pen-y-fan, we had the mountain to ourselves and didn't see a single person.
We got to the summit by the cairn, which was our intended campsite and began setting up our bivi's. Strider was using his poncho as a tarp and I used my DD tarp. By the time we's set up is was dark. We put our food on to cook and just chatted. The mist was so bad that only one of us ventured away from camp at a time, because visibility was about 5 metres, if we'd both left camp, it may have taken a while to find it again. We messed around with the head torches in the mist, creating sky shadows and trying to photograph them, but this proved very difficult without a tripod and only having a compact camera.
At about 5:30am I was woken by voices beside the cairn. They turned out to be a 4 man military patrol, one of them asked the patrol leader "Are they staff?" refering to Strider and I. The patrol leader replied with "No they're just a couple of ramblers." Fifteen minutes later I picked up my phone to check the time and as soon as I switched it on a soldier who was standing with his feet almost touching my bivi bag said "Are you staff or civvies?". I jumped out of my skin. I hadn't heard him before he opened his mouth. I wonder how long he'd been standing there wondering whether to ask or not and wondering if he'd caught staff sleeping on the job.
In the morning after breakfast we were just about to start packing up when 2 walkers came over the ridge, as they got closer I looked puzzled at one of them and said "Is that *****?" It was and we had quite a long chat. You know who you are and it was great seeing you again.
We packed up and went the long way down looking for a couple or geocaches as we went.
Island Wild Camp in the Lake District
6th August 2014
Wild-Camp:25
This wild-camp has fulfilled a childhood dream for me. Ever since I first read ‘Swallows & Amazons’ when I was 9, I have dreamed of using a small sailing dinghy to camp on Peel Island on Coniston Water. We weren’t on Coniston and we kayaked, not sailed, but we were making our own story, not following someone else’s, though one day I am determined to visit Peel Island where the film of ‘Swallows & Amazons was filmed.
We didn’t Kayak the full distance of 6 miles from the camp-site where we were staying in our caravan, we had a lift to a point about half a mile from the island where we took the kayaks off the van and began our short 15 minute journey across the water.
It began raining as I was finishing putting the tarp up, which I put up almost using my usual method. One end of the paracord around a tree, attached using a toggle, the other end supported by the paddles making an ‘A’ frame, the paracord wrapped around a couple of times then pegged into the shallow earth.
It didn’t rain for too long and it wasn’t long before we could get out from under the tarp. There wasn’t much exploring to do as the island has approximately a 50 yard diameter but we explored every part of it, watched the sail boats and steamers go by until all the activity on the lake stopped.
During the night it rained hard, but I’d pitched the tarp side on to the light wind and we stayed perfectly dry under the DD tarp, the kit was kept dry just outside the tarp in kayak bags.
Morning came and at 6am I started to heat the water for breakfast before the 6 mile kayak back to the camp site where we were staying in our caravan.
We didn’t Kayak the full distance of 6 miles from the camp-site where we were staying in our caravan, we had a lift to a point about half a mile from the island where we took the kayaks off the van and began our short 15 minute journey across the water.
It began raining as I was finishing putting the tarp up, which I put up almost using my usual method. One end of the paracord around a tree, attached using a toggle, the other end supported by the paddles making an ‘A’ frame, the paracord wrapped around a couple of times then pegged into the shallow earth.
It didn’t rain for too long and it wasn’t long before we could get out from under the tarp. There wasn’t much exploring to do as the island has approximately a 50 yard diameter but we explored every part of it, watched the sail boats and steamers go by until all the activity on the lake stopped.
During the night it rained hard, but I’d pitched the tarp side on to the light wind and we stayed perfectly dry under the DD tarp, the kit was kept dry just outside the tarp in kayak bags.
Morning came and at 6am I started to heat the water for breakfast before the 6 mile kayak back to the camp site where we were staying in our caravan.
Part One
Part Two
Troserch Hammock Hang:
3rd April 2014
Wild-Camp:24
Squatt decided at the last minute that he didn't want to come with me on this trip and he was sorely missed. I had even forgotten about this trip until I found the photos on the camera memory card, which is when I put this trip on this website (1st October 2014).
I'd left late and got set up about 2 hours before it began to get dark . Most of the time was spent taking photos of the spring flowers, I remember being bored and thinking that if I do solo trips again it'll be somewhere far, instead of a 10 minute walk from home.
3rd April 2014
Wild-Camp:24
Squatt decided at the last minute that he didn't want to come with me on this trip and he was sorely missed. I had even forgotten about this trip until I found the photos on the camera memory card, which is when I put this trip on this website (1st October 2014).
I'd left late and got set up about 2 hours before it began to get dark . Most of the time was spent taking photos of the spring flowers, I remember being bored and thinking that if I do solo trips again it'll be somewhere far, instead of a 10 minute walk from home.