Snowdon - at last.

Oh no! The alarm hadn't gone off - I'd overslept!

Except I hadn't. I'd just dreamt that I had. This recurring (and very irritating) dream plagues my sleep whenever I have something exciting or important to look forward to the next day. And I certainly had something to look forward to. Even the thought of a 3:30am wake up and a long drive were not enough to dampen my spirits.

I dragged myself out of bed after what felt like a woefully inadequate sleep; that dream has a lot to answer for! My kit was all packed and stacked ready to go. After well over a decade of procrastination I was finally heading to Snowdon.

Having double-checked and loaded my kit, I left home and headed west for the Welsh border. On my drive I listened to the audio book of that classic tale of British wilderness (albeit Scottish rather than Welsh wilderness) 'The 39 Steps' by John Buchan. The sky was bright with a nearly full moon, although I knew that clouds were forecast to be my fate as my journey progressed.

Sure enough shortly after I crossed into the land of the Red Dragon the clouds blocked the moon as completely as if I had driven into a cave, limiting my view of the wider world to the reach of my headlights for the remainder of the trip. I made good time across Wales - at that time of morning traffic isn't exactly heavy - and arrived at Pen-y-Pass car park and the proper start of my days adventure at about 6:30am.

Here I listed my spare kidney on Ebay to fund the parking charges, donned my warm clothes and a head torch and rechecked the map of my route. When I initially started planning for my trip to Snowdon I had hoped to complete it in milder weather and follow the Snowdon Horseshoe route, along two precarious ridge lines up to and back down from the summit. When I learned that there was sure to be snow on the higher ground, and that I would need to start my ascent in the dark because of when I needed to get home, I shelved that plan for a later day. The revised plan was to get as far into the ascent as possible as quick as possible in case there was a sunrise worth photographing. So I settled on the broad and well surfaced Miners track and started on up.

The thick cloud still obscured the moon, and sunrise was still over an hour away so I began in total darkness with no view ahead, but I knew that the mountains towered ahead of me. Soon a few chinks opened in the cloud letting through the first hints of dawn and giving me enough visibility that I could turn off my torch. As my eyes adjusted to the new, lesser darkness I could make out a snow capped outline ahead of me! I assumed this was Snowdon and smiled to myself, my goal was in sight - I was wrong though. What I could see was just a part of the ridge, some 300m below the still cloud bound summit.

The Miners track is straight forward and easy going until the far side of Llyn Llydaw where it gets a little steeper and rougher, but it is above Glaslyn that the path, and the view, starts to get really interesting. This is about 2/3 of the linear distance into the route, but only 1/3 of the vertical ascent, leaving a steep route to negotiate over the last few kilometres. It was also around this point that the laying snow became persistent and the rising sun started to break through a chink in the low hanging clouds. The combination of cool blue lake, majestic snowy mountains, broken cloud and warm sunlight made for a breath taking view!

But the concept of 'a view' was about to become irrelevant. The laying snow and the lowering cloud merged into a wall of white before me. I lost the route of the path in the snow several times and struggled to gauge how much further I had to go. I couldn't see the track 30 meters ahead at times, let alone the summit. The wind driven snow had done a comprehensive job of smoothing out the hill side, blending series of steps into smooth icy slopes. With the aid of poles and studded snow walking aids (proper crampons don't feature on my kit list yet) I made it to the summit ridge feeling in my inexperience as close to a proper alpinist as I've come yet, with just a short walk along the ridge remaining to arrive at the actual summit.

The ridge looked alien! The frigid temperatures and driving winds over the preceding days had sculpted icy feathers over every inch of it. Snow remained only in the most sheltered of spots, the rest blasted off by howling winds. The swirling ice traced the eddies of the wind as clearly as smoke in a wind tunnel and coated the entire landscape, with only the dark rocks beneath breaking the white of the ice. The now brightening cloud still firmly clamped on top of the mountain cast a flat, contrast-less light uniformly over the ice-coated everything and created conditions unlike anything I have seen before - a completely monochrome landscape.

The summit cairn and trig point looked like a chaotically iced wedding cake, and the deserted train station like a movie set from 'The Day After Tomorrow'. I was the first to the top that morning - no one else had been crazy enough to start out for the summit as early as me - and the solitude was palpable, although short lived. A trio of walkers had been gradually catching me for the past hour while I kept stopping to take pictures and they arrived just a few minutes later. I'd like to think that pioneering a path through the fresh, unsullied snow for them had slowed me down, but the reality is almost certainly just that they were faster than me!


I didn't stay long at the top. I had made my pilgrimage, had my adventure. Call me anti-social but sharing these special places with throngs of other people spoils it for me. More often than not it is the solitude itself that I am seeking, and the personal challenge of completing the ascent in the first place, the views are a bonus, but a very welcome one when they are there! Sure enough I passed many other hikers toiling upwards while I descended, but even when the cloud lifted and the iced-gem summit appeared against a bright patch of blue I didn't envy them, because they had to share it, and I had had it to myself, if only for a few minutes.

Now that the clouds had lifted and the sun was properly up the views on my trek back down were every bit as stunning as you would expect of the Snowdonian Mountains in winter. Snow capped peaks were there to be seen in every direction and the low winter sun picked out the finest of topographical details in a landscape which begs the question why we Brits ever feel the need to travel abroad to see beautiful scenery. I made it down about 5 hours after I originally left the car. I shed my cold weather kit, now feeling distinctly over dressed among gaggles of children and young couples who at midday were only just arriving. I left quickly, keen now my adventure was over to get back to my family for the remainder of the day. A few miles away I had to stop and take in the view behind one more time. The clouds had now lifted fully and the snowy summit of Snowdon had revealed herself to all the world. It was the perfect parting memory, one that is certain to bring me back again soon. This may have been my first visit to Snowdon, but it won't be my last!

Richard

'The Best Books' - Robert McFarlane: The Wild Places

Reading is a luxury I don't get in large quantities these days - work, family, church, part time work (glorified hobbies), photography - they all take their chunk of time. As a kid I used to read loads and when we first got married, before I started University, we both used to read loads together - probably because we couldn't afford to do much else! These days what would have been my typical reading time - the period between going to bed and falling asleep - is often so short that reading the blurb in one go would be a struggle.

Anyway - that slightly off topic waffle goes to explain why it took me nearly two years to finish reading this book, but it was certainly worth persevering!

I'd been aware of Robert Macfarlane as an author for a while but not had an opportunity to read any of his books until a few years ago when I requested a few for a Christmas present (or Birthday... I can't actually remember!). Thereafter I started reading it in fits and spurts as time allowed, which often meant while I was away from home on trips - working in the woods, holidays visiting family and so on - when the normal routines which fill up your day were disrupted enough to free up a bit of time in the day. These are also the times when I am most likely to be able to spare some time for adventure, exploration and time spent out of doors in the peace that the natural world provides, either as a family or occasionally solo. 

And this is the core of the 'The Wild Places' narrative. It is certainly something that resonates with me - an exploration of the last places in the UK which can still be considered as wild, what an adventure! I'm lucky enough to be familiar with a few of the places he visited in the writing of the book. I even read the chapter about coastal wildness - which recounts a visit to Orfordness on the Suffolk coast - the night after a micro-adventure of my own in that area. My in-laws live just a few miles from Shingle Street, the little hamlet where the spit fades away and joins the North Sea. My brother in law had recently acquired a set of inflatable canoes and had been looking for a chance to try them out. Being mid-summer we made the most of the long evening and stole away for a few hours to try the new toys. The sunset canoe expedition which followed is a fond memory which I have written about before and took us up river toward Orford flanked by Orfordness to the East and the salt marsh on our landward side. We stopped briefly on the shingle to enjoy the views before heading back to our start point... a journey made far more difficult by the tide which had turned and was now racing in. We ended up walking back to the car, beaten by the speed of the inbound tide which rendered our inexperienced paddling completely useless as we struggled to not be drawn back inland, let alone making significant forward progress!

Suffolk was among the tamer landscapes and habitats described. Trips to islands, far flung, dune clad coastlines, limestone pavements and the hidden world within there shaded grykes, windswept moorland, barren mountains tops and snow covered bogs with the shadow of ancient woodland are all described in a detail which simultaneously transports you there in person while instilling a burning desire to make a similar pilgrimage to such places yourself . Ever since reading about a night Macfarlane spent on top of Ben Hope near the north coast of Scotland I have been trying to find a reason to justify the 1000 mile round trip to see it for myself. I haven't found a reason yet... but it isn't going anywhere, I'll figure it out someday. 

Of course his trip to the Hope Valley in Derbyshire to look for mountain hares is something I can recreate far more simply - given that my office is in the valley next door! That's not to belittle the experience, I still love to see the white hares bounding away, particularly when there is snow on the ground. So far this year I have been tied up with office work and haven't been up on the hills yet to see them in their winter coats. Luckily there is certainly good opportunity for me to do so in the new year and I'll be sure the make the most of it! It is easy to forgot - working there everyday - that to so many people in the UK coming to the Peak District is a way to escape the daily grind of work, whereas for me, it is work. 

The picture at the top of the page was taken while on a short trip of my own - I was on route to watch a rugby game in Cardiff with my family. Having spent many of my formative childhood years in Wales I made the most of the opportunity by travelling down through Wales revisiting old haunts. In the evening I travelled to the end of the Gower Peninsula on the south coast of Wales to watch the sun go down over Worms Head. It wasn't long after I had acquired my new camera and I attempted to capture the scene with a time lapse... it wasn't the greatest success (you can watch it here if you really want!), but it gave me an hour on a wild coastline to sit in beautiful surroundings and read about Macfarlane making a trip to a comparable coastline a few hundred miles north, only he was approaching from the sea.

I won't go on - discussions of this nature get my mind racing through the long list of places I'd like to visit. And while patience is certainly a virtue it's not one I'm blessed with in abundance. There is a real risk I will lay awake at night dreaming of the Cairngorms, or the Outer Hebrides, or the wild rivers of mid-wales where I swam as a child, or the rugged coastline of Devon where I camped as a teenager... you see what I mean!? Much like 'The Wild Places', my list of dream destinations are largely in the UK. We are blessed with such a diverse island, or series of islands, that international travel isn't necessary if you goal is to visit wild places. If you're struggling for ideas then reading 'The Wild Places' will certainly give you food for thought, in fact it will be a feast! 

Follow Robert Macfarlane on:

Twitter:       @RobGMacfarlane
Instagram:   @robgmacfarlane

Alternatively have a look at all of his books here at his Amazon author profile.

Who doesn't love Autumn?

Surely even the most resolute townie can't look at the warm spectrum of colours in the UK's woods, hedgerows, parks and gardens at this time of year and not be moved, somewhere deep inside, to smile.

Is there any better type of day to explore the British countryside than a bright, crisp, autumn day where the chill of winter round the corner is tangible, but the memory of summers warmth on your back has yet to fade?

The vibrance of summer is gradually consumed by the slow-starting, but all encompassing fire of autumn until the trees and woods blaze into colour fore one last unified hurrah before dying with dignity, awaiting their phoenix like rebirth a few months ahead in spring. 

Even the difficult to love features of the countryside demonstrate a softer side, and become a little more lovable. Non-native, straight-lined, opinion-dividing blocks of commercial conifer forestry can look easier on the eye at this time of year. It depends on whether they contain some Larch, a conflicted species whose needles turn yellow-orange and fall, more like a deciduous species. Large, sprawling beds of bracken, the bane of upland land owners and managers turn a mottled, rusty brown which adds a subtle undertone to the last vestiges of the purple heather on the high moorlands.

I've been particularly lucky this year to have many opportunities to be out soaking in the autumn colours: all round the Peak District 'in the line of duty' for work, down in Riddy Wood on the handful of occasions I've been able to get there so far this season, and as a family we've taken the chance to get out and about.  We put in some effort and made quite a few opportunities - its not like they're difficult to find if you look for them - even your local canal towpath, city park or country lane holds coloured treasures not present at any other time of year.

Of course you can head further afield to make the most of it, and a few weeks ago we visited the Forest of Dean for the first time. It was fortuitous timing as much as anything that took us there at this time of years, and the good fortune favoured us again as we had a beautiful day to enjoy while we were there. The golden autumn colours were positively glowing, and we followed our children and their cousins (who we were visiting with) round the muddy paths, splashing in puddles, being fascinated by deer slots and wild boar rooting, and calling out the mushrooms which were making the most of the warm, humid woods and adding to the kaleidoscope of colour and texture on the woodland floor. It was great!

Did I mention that Autumn is my favourite season? I hope you're enjoying it as much as me! 

Richard

Finally made it to the Forest of Dean

We all have places we've wanted to visit or activities we've wanted to do 'forever'. Some of those wishes are realistic and others less so. For example, I'd love to go to New Zealand - and one day I might, but it won't be just yet. On the other hand, I've wanted to go to the Forest of Dean for a long time, and that is readily achievable, but I just haven't made the time or prioritised it over other opportunities.

But recently one of my brothers moved to Gloucestershire, right on the edge of the Forest of Dean. Last weekend we went to visit him and his family to get to see their new home and neighbourhood. It would have been a shame to miss out on a joint family walk, especially with the autumn colours at their best and the beautiful weather we had during our short stay.

One of the reasons I'd wanted to visit the Forest of Dean are the now infamous wild boar. I knew the boar themselves were likely to be illusive and didn't really hold out that much hope that we'd see one. But the evidence of their presence was certainly more conspicuous! The boars rooting around had turned the road verges over as effectively as the most diligent gardener. And then out of the blue and on route to our selected walking spot, there one was! As bold as brass rooting away right next to a public car park and attracting quite the crowd (including us). Having never seen a boar in England before it was quite the treat and the children enjoyed seeing the 'hairy piggy' too.

It had rained heavily overnight and the paths we walked were suitably muddy - muddy paths are always a bonus when you're walking with children. Even when, like our little lad, you often fall over in it. He spent a noticeable portion of our outing on his backside or face in the mud. We spent a happy couple of hours splashing in puddles, enjoying the autumn colours and foraging mushrooms for a late lunch (my brother is something of an expert so I feel comfortable picking them with him) before retracing our steps back to the car and heading home for a late lunch, bonfire and fireworks. Happy days!

The weather for our drive home through the midlands was as beautiful as the scenery and I was reminded yet again just what a beautiful country England is and how much we take our natural world for granted! We will continue to get our outdoors time as a family regardless of the cold and the mud as we get into Autumn and Winter.

Richard

Archive: Rivers - Supermarket, Highway, Inspiration

** I'm cheating a bit here - It's been a busy few weeks and I haven't had a chance to 

write any new blog posts, although there is stuff to write about! To keep material 

coming I thought I'd share this blog post from a blog I contribute to occasionally, 

originally written a few years back it is still as relevant now as when I wrote it. **

When I am out and about, whether it be for a gentle countryside walk with my family, a solo adventure, dedicated photography trip or a foraging session, I am always drawn to certain features in the landscape . Rivers are one of those features, particular smaller rivers in deep cut, wooded valleys. There is something about these valleys that never gets old to me. As a teenager on the North Devon coast I had plenty of opportunities to explore these sort of valleys, including in and around Exmoor, to this day one of my favourite parts of the UK. 

Me, contemplating life alongside the River Spey in Scotland.  

You may ask why, and I don't really know the definitive answer to that question but I have a few ideas. The first revolves around the concept of mental maps (something I had written about previously and will probably do so again for this blog), particularly resource maps. Rivers are a phenomenally rich resource (I originally wrote this for a bushcraft blog - www.bushcrafteducation.co.uk - and so it was originally aimed at foraging and that sort of topic):

First and foremost they are a readily available source of water. In the higher reaches of rivers where they run fast and clear it is also likely to be clean water which you can drink straight from the river. Even these days in areas where agricultural run off may have sullied the water, or in its lower reaches where it runs slow and silty, with simple techniques it can be filtered and purified to be made safe to drink.

They were to our hunter-gatherer ancestors an important source of protein, and still are today albeit one which is far less used than it once would have been, in the shape of water birds*, fish* and crayfish (although sadly these days an invasive species, the American Signal Crayfish which has driven our native White-clawed Crayfish to the edge of extinction). If you know where to look there may also be freshwater mussels or as you get closer to the coast and into the brackish and tidal zones of the river there may be other salt-water shellfish to harvest. 

With a constant source of water and, further down the river at least, nutrient rich silts, river valleys are often a great source of plant food as well. To name a few, wetland areas associated with rivers are often home to sedges (Carex spp.), some of which have seeds which can be eaten; Bulrush or Greater Reedmace (Typha latifolia) can be found which has edible rhizomes as well as being a useful tinder. These days in the UK several very common edible plants found along rivers are non-native species, certainly not something our hunter-gatherer forebears would have been familiar with - Himalayan Balsam (Impatiens glandulifera) and Japanese Knotweed (Fallopia japonica). And by eating either of these you are also doing your bit for conservation by reducing the population of an invasive plant. 

Some of the trees often found in close association with water are Willow species. Willow is an extremely useful plant to a bushcrafter providing bark for cordage & withies for basket making. In addition its bark contains Salicylic acid (in fact 'Salicylic' is derived from Salix, the Latin name for the Willow family) which is a component of aspirin and it has been known for centuries that chewing on willow bark could ease aches and pains and reduce fevers. 

Having established that rivers are useful for resources I think that part of my fondness for rivers stems from an instinctive draw to a landscape feature which is of use to me. But I don't think that's the whole story. 

Rivers are also beneficial for moving through the landscape. In a very modern sense we can see this based on how many roads or railway lines follow the course of rivers. In many circumstances the river bed itself will be the path through a landscape which experiences the least severe changes in elevation - waterfalls being a fairly obvious exception! By following these ready made paths modern engineers have saved themselves time and effort but also created for themselves different issues by placing their projects in the path of an immense erosive power - but that's another story.

I don't think this benefit would have been unappreciated by the people who roamed the land when roads weren't even a futuristic dream. Especially during the summer, when vegetation was at its highest and most impenetrable, and the water level was lower likely exposing a portion of the river bed, using these natural routes to move inland from the coast or the opposite would have saved effort and ensured that food to fuel your travels was never far away. Certainly in dense woodland I have followed small rivers or streams, sometimes alongside them and sometimes by necessity in them to aid my movements and help me to move more quickly or easily. It has long been a goal of mine to follow a river from its source to the sea - I think it would be a fascinating journey! 

In all this I have skirted around the potential of travel on the water itself. While not a expert in water travel I have been lucky enough to do a bit of kayaking and rafting both on rivers and the sea and it is a great way to travel. Early inhabitants of the UK may not have cashed in on this opportunity as much as those in other parts of the world, the effort required to manufacture water-borne vessels perhaps outweighing the advantages in many situations on a relatively small island. It is however well documented that early civilisations in other parts of the world focused their travel on waterways with variations on the theme of dug out canoes and later in the northern hemisphere with bark canoes. 

If you are referring back to the title you'll notice we are two thirds of the way through this tale. There will be those who read 'inspiration' in relation to 'river' and think I have lost it - city folks perhaps for whom rivers are places for stolen bikes and shopping trolleys, pollution outflows and perhaps if your lucky, the odd gull or duck. Luckily in Britain today even this inner city image of rivers is largely a thing of the past with tighter controls on pollution and water cleanliness but still the Thames in London or the Mersey in Liverpool are not the sort of rivers I look to for inspiration. 

The picture that comes to my mind when I think of inspiring rivers is a small river, wooded valley sides rising steeply above, clear water trickling quickly through a jumble of moss-covered rocks and woody debris. A Dipper rushing past or watching you from a half-submerged rock. Perhaps a little further downstream a whistle and a flash of blue alerting you to what has got to be the UK's most colourful bird, the Kingfisher, going about its business. If you're lucky some muddy footprints indicate a Otter isn't far away, and if your even luckier a glimpse of these now thankfully returning mammals. In the early morning mist a Roe deer perhaps, tentatively crossing from its shelter on one side to prime feeding ground on the other. As the sun gets higher, the dragonflies, the birds of prey of the insect world start to come to life. I could watch their aerial battles for territory and bright colours for hours before I got even a little bit bored. At the right time of year mayflies provide a spectacle, both as they 'dance' above the water and as they are fed on by every valley dweller you can imagine. I could go on... so I shall.

As a teenager I was lucky enough to work on a nature reserve for a week in Scotland. (On a side note, to any young person reading this, I cannot recommend highly enough this experience.) One day having been to check a hide over looking a large marshy flood plain alongside the river Spey, I spotted a family of fox cubs playing on a 'island' in the marsh, their earth was obviously located on the slightly higher and therefore drier ground above the wetland, among the gorse. On my return journey to my accommodation that evening, a gorgeous summer evening, I cut across the reserve - cresting a ridge having climbed up steeply through birch woodland I looked up to see an Osprey flying over, fish held tightly in its talons. Standing on the ridge transfixed by this spectacle I had never witnessed before I became aware of movement in the valley meadow below - a Roe buck, summer coat radiant red in the low evening sun had moved out of the woodland to browse. What a day! Not all strictly river associated but all within a stones throw.

The view from the hide I mention. The 'island' where I saw the foxes is in the middle ground on the left, the meadow where I saw the Roebuck a mile or so up the valley to the North (right in this picture). I have also seen Roe deer browsing through the marshland here - one doe in particular was selecting only umbellifer flower heads to eat, the only time I have seen this behaviour and a perfect example of the selective feeding style of Roe Deer. 

I know of no sound more relaxing and calming than the gentle trickle of a river to lull me off to sleep in an evening after a strenuous day out of doors. And in the same way I could sit, and have done on many occasions, and stare at a fire burning for hours, I could sit and watch a river flowing past, listening to its gurgles and trickles just as I listen to the pops and crackles of my fire. With the calls of Kingfishers or Dippers replacing the Tawny Owls I so often hear when sat by a fire in woodland.  

Beyond the river itself the landscapes they have created can be awe inspiring all on their own, dramatic landscapes all over the UK have been carved over many millennia by the rivers which now seem like a side show in the valley bottom. Caves and tunnels, stacks and caves and water falls all indicate the sheer power of water in the landscape and can be as spectacular as their coastal counterparts. 

We all I dare say have 'favourite landscapes' - I would certainly have to say that rivers and the associated valleys and wetlands are well up there for me. They provide food and fun, mental relaxation and the ability to move through the landscapes we love. What's not to like!

Richard

* - It needs to be remembered that the taking of certain fish and all water birds, and the methods of taking or catching them are restricted by law in the UK. In certain circumstances you may just need landowners permission, in other it is far more complicated. 

Let's stop here, Daddy

** We try to  set aside one day a month for us as parents to spend one-on-one time with 
our children - having only two children at present the numbers work out neatly! **

The plans had been made, the kit gathered, snacks selected, 'Rhino the adventure wagon' locked and loaded and we were half way to Kinder Scout in the Peak District National Park. A familiar route for me, as it is also my daily commute. This was to be Megan's first 'big hill' experience because she has been asking recently to climb a big mountain, and specifically 'the 4000 foot mountain' (Ben Nevis). I had informed her she would need to do some training for that, and thus the plan had been born to climb the highest hill in the Peak District.

However, as we were passing Ramshaw Rocks, just east of the Roaches and barely visible off the A53 in the swirling mist Megan piped up - She recognised this place. This was where we had been with Uncle Rob and Aunty Serena. She liked it here. Could we stop here instead please?

So we did - it saved us almost 40 miles of driving off our round trip after all. We continued round to Roach End at the far west of the ridge. Having always walked it from the east before that day I thought even a slight change of scenery would be welcome, not that you'd ever get bored of the Roaches I suspect!

The weather was ... sub-optimal. The cloud was down, the wind up and the rain persistent enough that we were getting wet from the get-go, but Megan lapped it up. She loved clambering over the various rocky tors and outcrops, peering down over the edges to see what was below.
(Luckily, on this occasion, she was also very good at following instructions, because some were high enough to be extremely unforgiving of slips and trips near the edge!)

She wasted no time negotiating when the sweets were going to make an appearance, and spent a large chunk of our time out that day clutching a slowly dwindling bag of midget gems - I managed to persuade her that the chocolate would suffer as a result of similar treatment so that stayed in the bag!


To anyone who has been to the Roaches no explanation is necessary of how impressive they are; to those who haven't, my inadequate vocabulary isn't going to do it justice, so I've thrown a few pictures in.

It is a spectacular grit stone ridge, with frequent rock outcrops along what is in reality more cliff edge than ridge for most of it's length. I thoroughly recommend a visit at some point, whether as a keen walker, casual observer or more daring rock climber it holds something worth experiencing for everyone.

Peregrine Falcons have nested there regularly in recent years, and Staffordshire Wildlife Trust, who manage the site, set up a Peregrine Watch station near Hen's Cloud (at the eastern end of the ridge) to give visitors views of these awesome birds of prey.

Megan loves it there - the combination of rocks and slopes, stunted trees and huge views to the south over the Staffordshire moorlands are stunning - when the cloud base allows - and we will certainly keep coming back. Another definite area to take a look at is Lud's Church to the west. But we've been there recently for a family trip so I'll save that for another time.

Eventually the cloud lifted giving us those aforementioned views South, down towards Tittesworth Reservoir and beyond. With the lifting cloud the wind eased and the rain stopped which made out return trip along the ridge back to Rhino more enjoyable.

Most importantly, Megan had a great time and we got to spend some time together out and about - she also started her Ben Nevis training, although I think we have a little way to go just yet. We are planning to go up to the Isle of Skye next year, which would be a prime opportunity to stop of at Fort William on the way past, but... we will have to see.

Richard