The girl who went up a mountain and came down a hill

I went off to Wales the other weekend with a load of mates from home for a hill-walking weekend. This was the weekend that was massively snowy in the midlands and had closed all the schools. 80 of us were supposed to be leaving from Loughborough that night but only 9 of us made it- the cowards, once you were past Hathern it was fine! Although those who set off early did have to wait 4 hours outside of Abergavenny while they cleared a jack-knifed lorry off of a frozen hill.

After a night of merryment and reunion, which saw copious amounts of best welsh Brains being drunk, we woke up bleary eyed and set off for the snowy heights of 'Sugarloaf Mountain'. It was mild, there was snow on the ground and the cloud was sitting low but the sun was overhead and Coe had a GPS. We weren't about to repeat the mistakes of the convent girls lost in the brecons a few years ago with bin-bags for water-proofs. I was armed with my new 'softshell' rain-coat- the rain runs off like, well, water off a duck's back!

We set off merrily enough, folk cracked open tinnies and puffed on their roll-ups, every now and then someone would spark a joint. This was a serious and hard-working expedition.

After a few hours of up-hill graft, and much mucking about in the snow, we knew we must be nearly at the top. The cloud was low on the hills so we couldn't actually see our goal, in fact, we hadn't been able to see the top all day but were confident in Coe's leading abilities.

We paused for a quick sarnie and others partook in more merry smoking and drinking. Fran bemoaned the state of his now-empty hip-flask but spirits were high. 'Tricky' (I only met him that weekend and am afraid I couldn't get used to this nickname, so I shall refer to him as Richard from now on) had forgotton his walking boots and even though his trainers were by now soaked through he bravely soldiered on. Coe said not to worry, we were only about 3km from the top so we headed off into the clouds.




We only climbed maybe 50m before we were right in the thick of the clouds. People were being distinctly uncharitable about waiting for each other so we were strung out with Richards soaking trainers bringing up the rear. The silence was really eerie and we disappeared into the fog well before we were 100m in front of the other. At one point, fed up of waiting for the laggers, and panting to catch up with the intrepid leaders I was on my own in the fog. Tramping with each foot repeating Fran's footfalls I imagined myself half-way up Everest. You know Torran- I really can see the appeal now!



It took us about 90 mintues to press through the snow to this point. We kept falling into drifts that came up to our waists and the only way to make it up was to take turns being snow-ploughs. I took my turn too! We went single file, stepping into each others' shoes, with only the leader bearing the brunt of the conditions. We knew we had to be near the top by now. All around was pristine snow, we were the only ones that had made it this far since the snow had come down- although, mysteriously, one pair of shoe-prints appeared coming toward us down the hill about half-way up. If that guy had made it on his own, then we would damn well make it too. Although the fact that they only appeared from about half-way made us briefly wonder if he was lying under a snow drift.



Ta Daaaaa! We make it to the rocks at the top, and although we couldn't find the trig point in all the mist, Coe let us off and delcared it the top (cos the GPS said so!). We had another hurried sarnie, roll-up and nip and raced back down the hill before our feet froze. By this point we all had frozen wet feet.
Although it had taken us two hours to get to the top from the point we had entered the clouds it took only half an hour to descend. We practially skiid out of the fog again. I think the trip was worth it just for the half hour of downhill recklessness. You see- two hours to ascend 3km equals mountin. 30 minutes to go a mile and a half equals hill!


Unfortunately the cloud sat so low the whole weekend that we never did get to see the summit that we had conquered so I looked up a pic online. Now come on, this beast is definitely no Castle Hill!