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ealandscapes · 5 years ago

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Before I launch into today’s main content, I want to talk about something that is a very important subject, something that affects me and has done for over half of my life. It’s the elephant in the lock-down room that the Government appear to have glossed over…

…mental health.

The impact the current situation has had on the mental health of the UK population is pretty significant (and the world, but I’m focusing on Britain here), yet it barely gets a mention; instead, all the Government seem to focus on are figures and mortality rates (which, as ‘luck’ would have it, keeps the irrational and gullible members of the public living in fear). I’m not poo-pooing the figures or their importance, but what about the importance of the other figures? The mortality rates of people who have hit rock-bottom during the pandemic because they may have lost everything or they see no way out, leading people to end their lives. I personally feel that, because of the constant barrage of negative media coverage and sensationalist reporting, this has forced people with pre-existing (and even to develop) mental health disorders such as depression and anxiety to shut themselves away and not try to get help. This has been exacerbated by the constant and frankly tiresome messages to ‘protect the NHS’, ‘stay at home’ and ‘stay local’. It is no wonder the population have been fearful or have not felt that their condition is serious enough to warrant a visit to the doctor or even hospital. I am angry at the Government, as they are the catalyst for this behaviour and because of it, people are suffering in silence, self-harming and even killing themselves. This is not an extreme view, this is the reality that has been swept under the carpet. In fact, the mental health charity Mind conducted a timely survey that I urge you to read here : in some ways this is another, very real pandemic yet it is not given the importance it deserves. This is really important and everybody should read it, because I can guarantee, you know someone that suffers.

Anyway, I just wanted to put that out there as it kind of links in to the main content of today’s post.

I decided that with my three days off work (I’m now employed in social care), I would really make use of them. So on the first day, I went on my mountain bike and ended up crashing and bruising my ribs pretty badly (that’s the risk you take) and yesterday, I planned a really nice mountain walk. Yes, mountain. Creigiau Gleision in fact. And as restrictions are finally being lifted in Wales on July 6th, and I thought that I’d resisted long enough from walking in my beloved Snowdonia mountains, I gave in. But I deliberately picked a lower-level walk without crossing into any areas the SNPA had closed off. Looking after my own mental health and well-being is now particularly important that I work in a job that can be stressful and emotionally demanding so I needed to be somewhere that I could escape completely. It remains to be seen how long I will remain in this role, as it takes a particular mindset and strong stomach at times. Care work does get a bad reputation, but I want to judge for myself first now I’m on the inside of it…

Percy was parked up in Capel Curig where I would start my walk from. The weather to start with was poor, so I’d waited until midday to go out when the forecast was much improved. It was still pretty warm too. Initially, I walked an oft-used route heading towards the footbridge over the Nant y Geuallt, but turning sharp left off the route to head very steeply up through a rough path through high bracken up to Clogwyn Mawr; trekking poles out! Upon reaching this point, it was time to take the first photo of the day; here it is over-looking Capel Curig and straight into Dyffryn Mymbyr, Llynau Mymbyr and the Snowdon Massif beyond:

As you can see, it was still pretty cloudy at this point in time. But I had faith that the skies would gradually clear.

I clambered down off Clogwyn Mawr (347m) to regain the rough trail that would lead me towards a very lovely and quiet spot. An area I don’t really want to divulge: although it is known to some, it is a serene place without people and it’d be great to keep it that way. Continuing on through the small valley, I eventually gained the ridge to take me up to the lovely Crimpiau (475m). This is a very special location with wide-open views of Dyffryn Ogwen and down to Llyn Crafnant:

It was here that I also had one of those shots in mind where I set a timer on the camera and gazed longingly into the distance:

I never know how to stand in these pictures!?

Although I was in no rush today, I packed up the tripod and headed down the rough and broken track off Crimpiau to head towards Craig Wen (548m), however I did not climb up to its summit as I wanted to spend more time on my final peak later on. It was along here that I bumped into somebody I know that had their camera trained on a bird flying around below. It was nice to see this individual and we had a good chat for ten minutes or so. The bird we were watching was truly special as it is a rare one: the Hen Harrier, with around only forty breeding pairs in Wales. Sadly, these birds became very rare due to persecution from grouse shooters in England (a barbaric ‘sport’ in itself), but they are slowly beginning to recover in Wales. I left him to it and continued my walk.

From here it is pretty wet underfoot across a small plateau, which is why I chose to wear gaiters today as I know the ground. It helps to have waterproof boots on too and I’m always glad that my Salomon Quest 4D GTX can keep my feet dry. These are really good 3-season boots and are very comfortable and good if you have wide feet. Mine are still going well at 600km and were very good when I walked the UK Coast to Coast in September 2019.

The light was starting to change as the weather improved, so I shot another panorama back towards Moel Siabod (872m):

Before too long the narrow, barely-there track starts to steepen as it contours around the west side of Craig Wen. It was here that I came across lots of bilberries so I promptly picked a handful and turned my tongue purple. I liked the triangular rocks here so quickly fired off another shot back towards Siabod:

Nice to see the heather starting to bloom too, but it won’t be at its grandest until September where the blooms carpet entire hillsides in differing hues of purple and lilac.

The climbing started now, taking me steeply up to the western side of Creigiau Gleision (678m) as views opened out again with Pen Llithrig y Wrach (799m) directly in front of me. The summit of Creigiau Gleision is actually at the south-western end of the long ridge that comprises it, but it’s easier to continue along the ledge track before turning right and doubling back on yourself to reach the summit. Unless you know this peak, it is pretty difficuly to find in mist and can be dangerous, due to the steep north-western side dropping into Marian Mawr towards Llyn Cowlyd; this is not Snowdon where you can ‘rely’ on following others instead of mountaincraft.

There were some cracking views back towards Moel Siabod today:

As you can see, the weather was really improving and was warming up yet despite the breeze, I did not have to put my windproof on. That said, it’s still always wiser to sit out of the wind behind a rock, as your sweat will cool quickly; I see so many people sitting in the wind; it’s called ‘wind chill’ for a very good reason! I carry a medium-weight down jacket regardless of time of year to throw on over everything else when I sit on summits to keep me warm. Not needed today as there’s a convenient rock to sit against completely out of the south-westerly, which is where I’m sat in the picture of my boots above. This is looking north-east to the coast.

Before I sat down for my lunch, the summit shots were required. The following shot is comprised of an eight shot ‘two row’ image: what this means is that I expose four shots from left to right for the upper part of the image, then move back to the left, shooting lower for the foreground and moving to the right again taking another four shots. When I shoot using this method, I expose in landscape (most panoramas are shot portrait) as this will give me a wider field of view and create less image distortion in post-processing, assuming a 30 – 50% overlap of each shot. I have a fixed-lens camera that is not particularly wide, so this a great way to get more from the scene and it will also provide you with more detail. I never thought of shooting panoramas this way until my friend Nick introduced me to it; thanks mate 🙂

In this image, from the left you can see Moel Siabod, most of Y Glyderau and some of the Carneddau. Tryfan (917m) stands like a proud stegosaurus to the right of centre with its head in the cloud, as well as Y Lliwedd (898m), rear-left of Gallt y Ogof (the peak in the centre). To the extreme left, Arenig Fach (689m) and Fawr (854m) can be made out.

Incidentally, my next mountain day will be Arenig Fawr that was also my first paid day as a qualified Mountain Leader. Here it is, with Moel Llyfnant (781m) that sits to the south-west of it:

I also took a few shots zoomed in towards Tryfan, a monotone shot of Bristly Ridge and Y Lliwedd:

Again, I wanted portrait shots looking towards Moel Siabod and into Dyffryn Ogwen. I shot the one into Ogwen on my phone for some reason; I really struggled to remove the blue tint despite altering temperature settings in Lightroom. I actually found composing the shots from Creigiau Gleision pretty difficult, requiring lots of moving around with the tripod trying to visualise what I wanted the result to be. There’s actually a surprising amount of faff in landscape photography!

After much messing about, I finally sat down out of the breeze with my lunch and a brew. It was so peaceful as I looked away towards the North Wales coast. I felt truly at ease with myself, as is often the case when I am in the mountains. There is nothing else that can give me absolute calm mentally; it’s just me, the mountain and the views with no intrusive thoughts. And as much as I could have sat here all day…

…I made my way back down directly over the boulders from the summit to rejoin the track, but decided after a few hundred metres to head fully off-piste down the south-western facing slopes so I could arrive at the river that flows into Llyn Cowlyd (60 metres deep by the way) from the leat at 410m. Normally, I would have walked along the north-western shore of the lake from the dam, and I would have done if I’d have started the walk sooner but poor weather prevented that. Still, it was lovely to traipse carefully across the moorland and get a lovely view of the lake, sitting between two mountains…

…then I carried on to the river where I clambered carefully down on dry rock to get this photo:

Just a couple of hundred metres up the river I joined up with the leat, but I’d be turning left along the fence line instead of following said leat (which is a lovely, level walk by the way, particularly in nice weather). The next section is notoriously boggy and today was no exception. There are wooden pathways over some of them, but most are in a bad state of repair and have been for a long time. Still, the view into Ogwen is always wonderful:

I could just make out from here the rescue helicopter passing along the northern flank of Moel Siabod, so quickly got the camera out and zoomed in for a shot; the scale of the mountain is apparent against the small size of the heli:

The walk for the next 2.5 km is all gradually downhill to Capel Curig, so it was nice to stroll out now. I wasn’t alone there, as a particularly frightening looking sheep eyed me up for a potential head-butt:

Like I said, bloody frightening.

It’s also unusual here in that there is a lone beech tree growing. Looking at the tree, you can clearly make out by how it’s grown away from the direction of the prevailing winds (south-westerly in the UK). Another good indicator of direction or aspect if you’re lost, at least in the UK; note the long outlying horizontal branch to the right that is almost a tree in its own right; the further out these outliers reach, the higher the chance of sunlight from above:

So here we can see the wind clearly comes from the left as the tree has a pronounced lean. The trunk will also be thicker on the left side, to ensure it is strong enough to withstand high winds and as this is the Ogwen Valley…

Eventually I arrived at the stile that drops me onto the A5 and a kilometre down to the car in Capel Curig.

This walk was just what I needed in near perfect weather, especially as from tomorrow I am working seven days straight which will drain me mentally, so by next weekend, I will need another mountain walk and possibly even a wild camp…

Thanks for reading guys.

Elton

Serenity Before I launch into today's main content, I want to talk about something that is a very important subject, something that affects me and has done for over half of my life.

#Blogging #coronavirus #covid19 #Health #Hill Walking #Hill Walking in Snowdonia #lockdownuk #mental health #mental illness #mind #Mountain Walking #Recreation #Snowdonia #snowdonia national park #Walking in North Wales #Walking in Snowdonia

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