Cadair Idris
From the darkness into the light.
My day in Cadair Idris started well enough, I had been given the day off by my hosts because they were in a food festival on Anglesey so I decided to take the long drive to Cadair Idris which was about 50 miles from where I was staying, the weather was looking dry with rain forecast for the rest of the week so off I went. The drive there was pretty uneventful with a couple of stops on the way to admire the lush countryside and stunning views and a stop at the local supermarket to buy my food for the day.
I have wanted to climb Cadair Idris for a very long time with the intention at some point in the future of doing the Welsh three peaks which also include Pen y Fan and Snowdon. When I arrived at the pass between the mountains I parked in the layby where there seemed to be a lot of others parked and headed for the steep outcrop where I could see many others just standing around, I climbed up and was told that this section called Cad West was part of the Mach Loop where the planes flying from Machynlleth flew so low that you could wave to the pilot in the cockpit. I had seen a Tornado flying above on the way there so I waited with everyone for the next flyby, I waited for about half an hour and decided to carry on with the climb as I had a long way to go (little did I know at this point exactly how far).
I climbed all the way to the top on this section which took a good couple of hours and when I got to the top after some scrambling on the rocks and very steep outcrops it became obvious that I had climbed up in the wrong place. I could see what I thought was Cadair Idris in the far distance but decided that I had to carry on as it was too dangerous to try and go back down the way I had come up (mainly because my knees don’t work properly due to being diagnosed with RA last year and having very swollen knees which had been damaged by the inflammation) so I plodded on, by this time pretty fed up that I had come up at the wrong place and knowing it was going to be taking me so much longer. The wind was unrelenting and it was very cold as if it was winter with it biting at my face or coming from behind blowing my hair in my eyes so I couldn’t see too clearly, alas I had forgotten my pony tail thingy.
I trudged across the wide expanse of boggy marshland trying hard not to sprain my ankle with all the twisting around on all the tufts of reedy grass growing wild; it was like trying to get across an area with land mines buried. I got to a point where I could see other people so I knew I was getting close to where I needed to be, I quickly speeded up in order to ask the other walkers if I was on the right track, having not brought a map with me (I know, very stupid thing to do). Finally after asking a couple of people I could see Cadair Idris’ huge form against the sky and realised that it is actually three mountains which are formed in a curved chair back type way with the seat actually being the lake, way, way below. Cadair Idris means the chair of Idris, who was a mythological giant.
On the highest point was the trig point so I made my way there first and carried on the up and down climb around the three mountains, the terrain was very loose scree underfoot, very steep and not enjoyable at all with the wind still unrelenting. I had realised at this point that my phone was out of charge, so I’m up a mountain I don’t know and don’t like very much with no map and no phone! Stupid, Stupid, stupid!!!!! Did I mention it rained loads as well!!!
One of its redeeming features was the fact that there was no clamouring for the summit to take photos like there is on every other mountain I have climbed, from Snowdon to Ben Nevis to Macchu Picchu, oh no, I suspect that everyone on this mountain, like me, just couldn’t wait to get off, so there was no hanging about to admire the views which was also another redeeming feature by the way, but not redeeming enough to hang about.
The path from this point on the way down was not very clear, so I started following the few people that were ahead, until they disappeared from view. The area at the top before getting to the steps was just rocky outcrops and boggy marshland with lumpy reedy blobs and the peaks were very loose scree or in the words of Wikipeadia composed of Ordovician igneous rocks, with classic glacial erosion features such as cwms, moraines, striated rocks, and roches moutonnées (whatever they are) and sheep grazing everywhere, but no clear paths in sight, so I took the way I thought looked the shortest, which consequently, took me way off course and I ended up falling in the boggy marsh and just sitting there amongst the sheep crying! Lol! What a shitty day this was turning out to be, all the way down I was saying to myself. “I am so glad I have done this mountain cos there is no way I am ever doing it again. The Welsh Three Peaks challenge can go f… itself, I am never, never, never doing this again, and I hate this mountain with a huge passion”. And I don’t hate easily!!!
I got up, wiped myself down, wiped the tears and got the hell on with it, the problem when you have climbed a mountain is, you have to get down, anyway I carried on trudging through the horrible rocky fields and every now and then after relentless descending, I lifted my head up to look at how far I had reached but every time I looked down at the road the cars still seemed like Tonka toys way off in the distance. I reached the edge of another mound and was hoping the other side would be a path but no it was a rocky cliff which meant more back tracking to find the way off the edge, I could see walkers in the distance so headed for them until the path came into view at last, far off in the distance, I carried on until I got to the steps and finally started the descent of the steps which still seemed like descending from the heavens.
By this time I had been up the mountains for 7 hours feeling like shit, did I mention the driving rain every so often? I was in agony, with my dodgy knees and feeling pretty fed up, also remembering that I was descending into a different area to where my car was parked, which meant a long walk along the main road back to my car. My legs were in auto mode by now and were moving stiffly like some robot but I decided that in order to do this travel thing properly I needed to be able to thumb a lift without being scared, so I did! I was in too much pain not to, a few cars just sailed on by, but then a car stopped with two lovely guys from Kent who had been up the mountain as well, they dropped me off at my car and I arranged to meet them up the road in the Three foxes pub to buy them a drink by way of a thank you.
As I approached my car I was fumbling around for my keys in my pocket, but they weren’t there, in my bag, they weren’t there either, starting to panic now as there was no way I was ever going back up that mountain, when I saw them just dangling there in the car door which I had locked but forgot to remove the keys, I was so relieved I cried again!! Lots of crying today for various reasons. I got in the car put my phone on charge and started it up pulled off the curb and it started to judder, made it to the end of the layby and it stopped so I pulled it into the side of the road and cried again! It’s good to cry, lol, but then I just sat there thinking “What do I do now, stuck on a road in the middle of nowhere, getting dark, a little phone battery but no signal and no wifi with the two guys up the road thinking I had done a runner” There was nothing else for it but I had to thumb a lift again so I put the red triangle at the back of the car to warn oncoming vehicles and started walking toward the pub, crying as I walked and talking out loud to myself about my decision to travel on my own, questioning the sense of it all! Lol!!! Anyway another lovely person picked me up and he was from Aberdovey which wasn’t far from Cadair Idris, by this time I had decided to try and stay in the hotel that was the Three foxes until the morning, as things are always better dealt with in the morning. He took me to the pub and said he would wait for me to see if there was room and if not he would take me somewhere else until I was safe (there are some lovely people out there). Anyway I got inside and saw my first two knights in shining armour who quickly made room for me at the bar and ordered me a large glass of red wine when I told them what had happened. I told the guy waiting in the car that I was going to be ok and told him thanks and how grateful I was for the lift. I joined the other two in the bar and we tried to figure out what I was going to do (not having breakdown cover, another stupid thing I forgot before I came away).
We had a lovely chat and exchanged stories, me telling them about my epic trip which had only just started and I was already doubting, and them telling me a little about themselves, while we also tried to figure out a way to sort my predicament out. The hotel was full so that was out, their names were Roger and Shawn and they told me that if I joined RAC there and then, that RAC had a policy that they would help me out straight away so I used the hotel phone and did this immediately, it cost me £130 for breakdown cover for the year and roadside assistance that night but there was a three hour wait because I was in such a remote spot! LOL!!
By this time it didn’t matter, I ordered another round and got chatting to my two rescuers, lovely guys on holiday in the Welsh hills, having just been to Cadair Idris, but didn’t quite make it to the top. It turned out that Roger used to work for Trinity Mirror, a company that my husband and I used to work for many years ago; he was also a newspaper editor who had worked on Fleet Street and had written the autobiography called “Just for the Record” by Rick Parfitt of Status Quo fame. Shawn worked in electricity I think, we didn’t’ talk much about what he did because he said it was boring. The people I have met so far on my trip have added to the joy I feel at doing this. Only a few hours ago I was starting to question myself for doing this on my own but then I meet these lovely guys and all is ok with the world again.
The RAC man turned up within an hour and took a look at my car but couldn’t fix it, I had already been told that if it had to be towed I could only go 50 miles so I was praying I would be within the limit, it turned out I was just outside but he took me anyway, we chatted all the way home, he wasn’t a traveller and wasn’t really interested in travel, he had lived in the local village most of his life and had been a mechanic, he was all set to marry his sweetheart in September and settle down to a happy life with her. He told me about some local beauty spots off the beaten track which I was hoping to get to when my car was fixed!
I got back to my flat about midnight and called the local garages in the morning, the local garage in Caerwys which was about three miles away agreed to come and look at it, they drove down and took it back to their garage which was called Park View, it seemed to drive ok for them but I hadn’t tried it, anyway they kept it a day then came down to tell me that night that it was a right off, engine was knackered, turbo gone and basically told me to leave it there as it wouldn’t drive properly again without spending a lot of money on it in the thousands they said, they told me that had put oil in it and I told them that I would pick it up in the morning. They charged me £60 for putting oil in and checking it out and I took it back but I was also scared to drive it in case it broke down at any time which they said it could do. I was due to go home that weekend, so caught the train instead with the intention of selling it when I got back up North for scrap and just using public transport, I spent a long time booking trains, buses etc. and looking at the price for personal number plates so I could sell mine.
When I got back from my home trip I tried the car out and it seemed to be driving ok, I was due to go home for good the following week before my trip to Ireland so I decided to test it more by driving short distances. It seemed ok so I decided to drive it back down south which would be a real test. I arranged with my local garage to have a look at it for me to let me know if I needed to get rid of it and he couldn’t find anything wrong. This was brilliant news but I needed to cancel my train and bus tickets, of which I couldn’t get the money back and I had already cancelled my Scotland trip in favour of an extra week in Ireland and an early visit to Thailand.
I suppose the moral of the story is “All’s well that ends well”. It was a shitty day made good by the people I met! I’m still never going up that mountain again though!! #Lovinglife #Livingmydream