Llangollen Days 1 and 2

Thursday

With our original plans for the weekend having had a spanner thrown in the works, and determined to go somewhere, we found ourselves pulling into a campsite just out of Llangollen at noon on Thursday. We might have gone for a short stroll after lunch, but the rain that had been hammering down as we arrived turned out not to be the short shower, as I had hoped. With all thoughts of strolling dismissed, a productive afternoon was had, as eight man-hours saw great inroads made into transforming 34 years worth of TGO Challenge data into a format useful for graphical purposes.

Friday

Incredibly, considering Thursday’s weather and the forecast, Friday dawned a clear skied day. It was definitely a day to be out and about early. Alas, we struggle with early unless we’re backpacking and by the time we dragged ourselves out of the door at just gone 10am, there were clouds appearing.

Luck was on our side and in spite of rain visible in various directions around us, those clear blue skies stayed above us as we made our way towards and up the Llantysilio Mountain.

Our first objective, and it was so warm that we were in our shirt-sleeves

It couldn’t last forever, and it didn’t last forever. We were nearly atop Moel Morfydd when the first shower hit us, which combined with two very sore heels (me, persevering with a pair of boots which don’t like my heels) caused me to declare that we were going to call it a day as soon as we reached the trig point.

A bit grey and damp all of a sudden.

The views from the trig looked like they would be as good as advertised, if you found yourself up there on a clear day. They were still pretty impressive on Friday, even if a little curtailed.

Perhaps it was the views, or perhaps it was the thin air (we were up at 550m, you know!), but in a rush of blood to the head I decided that notwithstanding the heels and the weather, we would complete the walk we had set out to do.

Back we went the way we had come, and up the steep pull to the top of Moel y Gamelin. We chased a rainbow the whole way there, but didn’t catch it.

That’s not the end of the rainbow which we chased. It was the other end.

Such a well worn path (and steeper than it looks here!), yet we didn’t see a single person out all day

Some of the down was just as steep as the up had been. Some was steeper. Some was very prickly when we took an ‘interesting route’ through a gorse covered hillside.

It wasn’t until we were well on our way back to our starting point that any real rain hit us. It lasted a bit longer than the earlier shower, but not enough to make us grumble.

After a tea break under the shelter of the gateway to the churchyard at Llantysilio, it was but a hop and a skip back along the canal.

I’ll pop in a photo of the church just because I didn’t take a photo of the gateway.

Nine and a half miles were walked with approaching 3000 feet of ascent, and my legs were starting to feel it. What I needed, just to complete the achingness, was another walk on Saturday…