Fast and light in the Carneddau

This week-end saw me return to the mountains of Snowdonia in summer mode - sort of !  With winds gusting up to 50 mph, the 0C isotherm at 900M, cloud base at 700-800m and with sleet and hail across the plateau it didn't feel much like summer !

I was out with Mike, an experienced trail runner and triathlete, who wants to build up his mountain days whilst pushing his fitness.  So, with some trepidation (I'm not the fastest runner in the world) I agreed and we set off from Chester at around 6.30 am  with a plan to do the Carneddau from Pen yr Helgi Du round to Pen yr Ole Wen and possibly up onto the Glyderau.

When we arrived at our start point we quickly agreed that in the conditions a Carneddau round would be sufficient, something for which Mike's dog William, affectionately known as 'Willy', would be grateful !

The plan was always to walk briskly up hill and run the flats and downhill where possible, keeping moving and hopefully warm with relatively little kit.

Kit / equipment: I wore running leggings, my amazing X-bionics thermal, a thin fleece gilet, trail shoes rather than boots, a hat and thin windstopper gloves.  We each carried the bare minimum I considered safe: energy drink, energy food (a couple of bars and a bag of walnuts), waterproofs, first aid kit, belay jacket and spare gloves.  Mike also carried a small flask of coffee.  I must say it did feel quite exhilarating to be so light after a winter lugging round heavy packs in winter boots. In future though,  I think will add a blizzard bag to the list.

To avoid getting lost in the murk that was enveloping the plateau, I had a map and compass and my trusty Garmin fenix watch as a navigation aid and GPS fall back tool.  I had also calculated some rough timings based on a brisk walking pace of 5kph and 30s per 100m just as a guide for how we were doing.

We set off at a good pace up the broad southern shoulder to the summit of Helgi Du, waterproof jackets already on as it was raining hard.  I elected not to wear waterproofs trousers at this stage but Mike did -his was probably the right decision as my legs did get quite cold and wet and when I eventually donned them higher up, my legs took quite a while to warm up.  Once on the top of Helgi Du we were slowed quite a bit by the steep scrambley descent on the far side - it was slippy in the wet requiring caution, but the main issue was Willy - he really didn't like the steep descent much at all.  Once down to the col we made good time back up and onto the summit of Llewellyn in around 1:45, some 45 mins faster than my schedule - not bad, maybe there is something in this fast and light thing.  Some careful nav was then required off the summit in very poor visibility to ensure we headed across towards Dafyd rather than continue out to Yr Elen.  With the aid of a bearing we set off in the right direction and soon picked up the main path across the plateau and despite being pelted with hail in our faces made reasonably swift progress across to Dafyd and then on towards Pen yr Ole Wen where we slowed a little by numerous pee stops - despite having drunk only half a litre !  As we approached the summit we saw our first people of the day, fully kitted heading in the opposite direction - enjoy !

With the need to get back to the car, we took the east ridge option off the Ole Wen towards the col near Ffynnon Lloer to save about 2km walking along the road.  This is an interesting descent route, mainly steep walking but with a little easy scrambling and here again we hit a bit of an issue with Willy, who despite being a collie is definitely not SARDA dog material.  By now he was looking petty tired and bedraggled and not at all happy with our choice of descent.  Eventually, he was coaxed, cajoled, dragged and occasionally carried over the trickier sections and we made it to the col.  He got his revenge on the remainder of the descent though, as I executed a number of perfect banana skin slips onto my back whilst trying to run down the sodden wet grass, while his four legs kept him comfortably upright.  A quick jog of just over 1 km back up the road brought us back to the car, a rest for tiring legs and a very relieved looking dog who jumped straight in the boot and didn't move again !

So had the fast and light ethic worked ? we covered 15.5km including 1200m of ascent in 4:15 - an average speed of 3.6 km/h.  But we had been stationary for about 54 mins for a variety of reasons - mainly dog / steep ground related - and our moving average was 5km/h.  These figures don't sound fast in running terms but they are both significantly faster than an average walking pace in that terrain - we were about an hour faster (20%) than my 'fast walk' estimate.   It was a actually faster than that though really, because my estimate made no allowance for slowing down on the steep descents when my recorded track showed that the slowest parts of our journey by far were the descents off Helgi Du and Ole Wen.

Put another way, we covered a full days walk for many people in half a day and could have been faster.  Plus, I felt that in those conditions moving quickly and unencumbered was more pleasant (less unpleasant ?) than the slow, steady slog involved with bigger sacks and thicker clothing. Ill certainly be doing more of this.  BUT it does rely on having competent, fit participants and decent equipment - if we had got lost and/or moved more slowly in those conditions we could easily have got hypothermic and been in trouble, so I certainly won't be doing it with clients generally.