Pen-Y-Fan Debut

'I've never climbed Pen-Y-Fan; I'd like to do it during the half-term holidays if we could?' was the recent request made by Wandering's Son-in-Law.

The only suitable day according to the weather forecast was Thursday, but the inevitable school holidays would mean loads of other families with the same idea.

The beauty of climbing Pen-Y-Fan on that first occasion is always the stunning views that inevitably entice you back for a second peek, but the low lying cloud today was an ominous factor as we approached the Storey Arms on the A470.



Despite the school holidays the car park to the south of the Storey Arms was surprisingly only half full as we crossed the bridge over the Taff Fawr and joined the Beacons Way. The normal view of Corn Du on the ascent was already non-existent! We entered the clag after 2 kilometres of the steady climb up to Bwlch Duwyrit, which we reached in 40 minutes (Jonathon trains regularly at a kick boxing gym so is very fit!).

There was a short queue for the scramble over the rocky outcrop at Corn Du before reaching the summit of Pen-Y-Fan (886 metres) after 45 minutes walking (humble apologies to Lord Twynyrodyn and the National Trust but there really was nothing to see on the mountain today!).

We left the howling wind and poor visibility on the summit cairn to shelter on the South East face of Craig Cwm Sere, for a warm cup of tea and a ham sandwich.



With the return descent into the inevitable prevailing wind it was decided to leave the mountain via Craig Cwm Llwch and Y Gyrn back to the Storey Arms to complete the circular route.

Notes from a Small Island

Written by American author Bill Bryson (first published in 1995), this is a humorous (laugh out loud) travel book about what he liked about the country so much.

There is a brilliant passage on male toilet humour that is actually hysterical and a true but not so complimentary encounter in North Wales, but the following excerpt sums up the reason why so many people actually enjoy trekking in Britain.

I remember when I first came to Britain wandering into a book store and being surprised to find a whole section dedicated to 'Walking Guides'. This struck me as faintly bizarre and comical - where I came from people did not as a rule require written instructions to achieve locomotion - but then gradually I learned that there are, in fact, two kinds of walking in Britain, namely the everyday kind that gets you to the pub, and all being well back home again, and the more earnest type that involves stout boots, Ordinance Survey maps in plastic pouches, rucksacks with sandwiches and flasks of tea, and, in this terminal phase, the wearing of khaki shorts in appropriate weather.

For years, I’ve watched these walker types toiling off up cloud-hidden hills in wet and savage weather and presumed they were genuinely insane. And then my old friend John Price, who had grown up in Liverpool and spent his youth doing foolish things on sheer-faced crags in the Lakes, encouraged me to join him and a couple of his friends for an amble – that was the word he used – up Haystacks one weekend. I think it was the combination of those two untaxing-sounding words, ‘amble’ and ‘Haystacks’ that lulled me from my natural caution.

‘Are you sure that it’s not too hard?’ I asked.

‘Nah, just an amble,’ John insisted.

Well, of course it was anything but an amble. We clambered for hours up vast, perpendicular slopes, over clattering scree and lumpy tussocks, round towering citadels of rock, and emerged at length into a cold, bleak, lofty nether world so remote and forbidding that even the sheep were startled to see us. Beyond it lay even greater and remoter summits that had been quite invisible from the ribbon of black highway thousands of feet below. John and his chums toyed with my will to live in the cruellest possible way; seeing me falling behind, they would lounge around on boulders, smoking and chatting and resting, but the instant I caught up with them with a view to falling at their feet, they would bound up refreshed and, with a few encouraging words, set off anew with large, manly strides, so that I had to stumble after and never got a rest.

I gasped and ached and sputtered, and realized that I had never done anything remotely this unnatural before and vowed never to attempt such folly again.

And then, just as I was about to lie down and call for a stretcher, we crested a final rise and found ourselves abruptly, magically, on top of the earth, on a platform in the sky, amid an ocean of swelling summits. I had never seen anything half so beautiful before. 'Fcuk me' I said, in a moment of special eloquence and realized that I was hooked. Ever since then I had come back whenever they would have me, and never complained and even started tucking my trousers in my socks. I couldn't wait for the morrow.

Desert Trek for Red Nose Day

Embarking on the toughest physical challenge of their lives, nine celebrities will attempt to cross one of the world's most inhospitable deserts in Northern Kenya to raise cash for Comic Relief. The brave trekkers are aiming to raise as much cash as possible which will help people living unimaginably tough lives both across Africa and the UK.

It could even help to prevent thousands of people in Africa from going blind - something which affects many people living in the region where the trek is taking place. Every minute, a child goes blind somewhere in the world and the effect is truly devastating. Tragically, up to fifty per cent of all children who lose their sight will die within two years.

What makes these figures even more astonishing is that eighty per cent of all blindness is preventable and just £5 could pay for a sight-saving operation for someone in Africa who's suffering from a debilitating eye condition called trachoma.

You can donate to Comic Relief right now by texting the word DESERT to 70011. By doing this you'll be giving Comic Relief £1 to help transform the lives of poor and vulnerable people, all over the UK and across Africa. Texts cost £1 plus your standard network message charge and the whole £1 goes to Comic Relief.

You must be 16 or over and always ask the bill payers permission. Full terms and conditions are below.

Its going to be a gruelling challenge - and you'll be able to hear from Scott and all the celebrities (including Kara Tointon, Olly Murs, Dermot O'Leary, Ronni Ancona, Craig David and Nadia Sawalha) from Monday 21st February on Radio 1 as they trek across the desert.

Sugar Loaf

As you approach Abergavenny from Raglan in the east on the straight autobahn-like A40, the distinctive outline of the conical summit of the Sugar Loaf (at 596 metres) dominates the horizon as the southern most peak of the Black Mountains.

It was extremely disappointing to depart from home with blue skies and sunshine to arrive at Abergavenny only twenty minutes later in miserable low cloud. Its normally the other way round!

The approach to the start of the ascent was made via the National Trust car park, from the north-east of the Sugar Loaf about a half mile past Bettws.

Walking during February in either the Brecon Beacons or Black Mountains is often through low cloud and after the initial climb onto the lower plateau, with views of Partishow Hill to the north, the visibility gradually reduced to less than 100 metres.



The only incident of note on the ascent was when I spooked a grouse or pheasant a few feet away in the bracken and heather, that subsequently made me jump at the loud flapping of its frantic wings.

The final climb to the summit is steep and the long narrow ridge, only 20 feet wide, stretches for about 50 or 60 yards from south to north. On a clear day views to the Bristol Channel in the south-east and the Malvern Hills to the north-east can be spectacular, but unfortunately not today.



The only benefit of the poor visibility was the deserted summit where I stayed for 15 minutes.



The Sugar Loaf was donated to the National Trust in 1936 by Margaret Haig Thomas, Viscountess Rhondda, and daughter of David Alfred Thomas who served as a Liberal Member of Parliament for Merthyr Tydfil, from 1888 to 1910.

The walk was 8 kilometres and involved 369 metres (1,100 feet) of ascent, taking 1 hour and forty minutes.

Northern Lights

Stargazers all over Britain may witness the extraordinary light-show of the aurora borealis over the next few evenings, as solar flares created by huge particles blasted out of the Sun enter our atmosphere.

This rare opportunity to see the celestial spectacle follows a storm on the Sun that has produced the most powerful solar flare in the last four years.

The flares were accompanied by an eruption on the Sun that can hurl a billion tonnes of particles into space at a time.

Displays of the Northern Lights have already been seen further south than usual, in Northern Ireland and elsewhere in the UK.

The Sun's activity rises and falls over an 11-year cycle and over the next two years is expected to peak as it reaches what astronomers call the "Solar Max".

Celtic Connections - Dartmoor

Human Planet

The higher you climb the tougher life gets on a mountain. In this particular episode Human Planet explores the extraordinary ways in which people survive at extreme altitudes where nature becomes utterly unforgiving.

In the Altai Mountains in Western Mongolia the vast open spaces make hunting for food almost impossible, so the locals have forged an astonishing partnership with golden eagles which can do the hunting for them. On the precipitous cliffs of the Simien Mountains of Ethiopia the programme joins a young boy locked in a dramatic battle with fearsome gelada monkeys which are hell-bent on raiding his family's meagre grain harvest. In the Himalayan state of Nepal - the roof of the world - the documentary makers witness a rarely seen ceremony: a sky burial. In a land where there is little wood to burn for cremation, and where burying the dead is virtually impossible, the dead are fed to vultures in the ultimate reverence of nature.

The Alps are the most populous mountain range in Europe. Whilst filming a story about the danger of avalanches with the ski patrollers of Grindelwald in the Jungfrau region of Switzerland, the Mountains team took to the air to capture these breath-taking shots of two climbers scaling the Mönch ridge. Hans Rudi-Gertsch and Lorenz Frutiger are mountain guides and veteran climbers who have both conquered the North face of the Eiger.



Human Planet is an awe-inspiring, jaw-dropping, heart-stopping landmark series that marvels at mankind's incredible relationship with nature in the world today.

Uniquely in the animal kingdom, humans have managed to adapt and thrive in every environment on Earth. Each episode takes you to the extremes of our planet: the arctic, mountains, oceans, jungles, grasslands, deserts, rivers and even the urban jungle.

Human Planet crews have filmed in around 80 locations, creating many stories that have never been told on television before. The team has trekked with HD cameras and state of the art gear to film from the air, from the ground and underwater. The result: a “cinematic experience” created by world-class natural history and documentary camera crews and programme makers.

Beyond the Beacons Live

After a really unsatisfactory period of inactivity because of the driech weather conditions, a few of the Strollers spent an enjoyable evening at the Bear Hotel, Crickhowell.

The Earl of Twynyrodyn, Wandering and the super-fit Cynon Valley fiftysomething, were joined by experienced mountaineer Richard W who had just returned from a walking holiday in Ecuador, to listen to International Mountain Leader Allan Gibbs provide an illustrated talk about his experience treking the 'Greater Ridges' of the world.

He provided a detailed insight into the Himalayan experience on the route to Base Camp at Mount Everest. Unfortunately, there were no photographs of the landing strip at Lukla airport! Included in a party of eight that he led a few years ago, were individuals from such diverse backgrounds as someone who laid out the cones on the motorway contraflow systems and a Merchant Banker (boo!). Interestingly Allan indicated that the valleys on the approach to Everest had benefited from significant investment by Sir Edmund Hillary and other climbers and they now had the best equipped hospitals and schools in Nepal.



Allan also spoke about his trips to Mount Kilimanjaro (an extinct volcano with a large glacier) where conditions can be tougher then you expect, Burma, Bolivia, Ecuador and the Alps. Provided you are well prepared for the lack of hygiene in the remote regions, surprisingly he was confident that most of the regular walkers in the room would comfortably be able to climb all of the routes that he spoke about. The biggest problem generally experienced is one of altitude sickness.

He also runs his own outdoor experience training organisation called Golden Valley Training.

Beyond the Beacons

A chance to listen to Allan Gibbs (International Mountain Leader) at the Bear Hotel, Crickhowell at 7.30pm on Wednesday 9th February 2011. Allan has led groups to some of the world's highest peaks.

An illustrated talk using images and words from Everest to Kilimanjaro, from the Arctic to the Andes. Providing a unique view in what could be described as the 'dream day job' from beyond the Beacons.

Allan is an accredited trek leader, having led trips to Alaska, Bolivia, India, Peru, Morocco, Nepal and of course the Alps. Before using his skills as a full-time expedition leader and outdoors trainer, Allan was head teacher of a school and deputy head of an Outdoor Centre. He is also a member of the Longtown Mountain Rescue Team.