First Blood

 Strange Patterns in the forests under the Berwyns, The alleged crash site of a UFO in the 1970s.

First Blood. The first mountain.

How many times have I heard people regard the Berwyn mountains in Wales as being the boring Berwyns, well perhaps they don’t command the glamour or have charisma the pinnacles of Snowdonia enjoy, they may not be as grand as the Scottish Munros, and they may not be as pretty as the lakes, however they do have a reputation for being the only alleged UFO crash landing site in the UK, denied of course by the Ministry of Defence. Despite this fame the boring Berwyns just sit quietly in the limelight of their bigger brothers over in Snowdonia trying to stay out of trouble by attracting less people and giving the residents of these peaceful hills, peace and tranquility.  However I for one will be forever grateful to the boring Berwyns. They hold a place of honour deep within my Heart  for being the very first mountain I ever climbed.

       Its 1969 and man had not yet set foot on the moon, the Beatles were still together hitting the top of the charts and Fell walking was still the domain of strange eccentrics and very funny dressed oddballs from public schools. I at this time was a snotty little scallywag, living with a large family in a council house on a large estate in a small town on the Welsh border. Like the other kids on the estate I attended the local comprehensive spending most of my spare time either fishing, playing football on the local green or trampling around the local countryside. My parents struggled each week just to put clothes are our backs and feed us, but that didn't deter us from looking for adventure where ever we could find it, although we had no money we still created our own fun. If we couldn't buy what we wanted, we made it out of what ever we could lay our hands on. No fancy bikes or go-carts, our  transport was made from planks of wood and pram wheels painted in vivid  colours from left over paint. My first bike was built from bits of old bikes rescued  from local dumps or the old canal. No one cared what they looked like as long as they worked. Perhaps I look at my childhood through rose coloured glasses, but the summers seemed long, the Sunny days lasted forever and the rain for some reason added a hint of glitter to the picture. Even winters had more fun about them with snowball fights and sledging all part of our endless fun.

       Where was I? Ah yes a teacher from our school who sadly died a few years later of cancer, tried to form a mountaineering club after school. This being a typical comprehensive it had few facilities and very little money to spare.  However a bunch of us who thought it would be a laugh; joined up with the hope it would be a good way of getting off school. After a few rudimentary lessons on how to read a map and a compass on a local hill, which usually ended up with us all messing about and nobody actually taking any notice or learning anything, we were ready for our first great adventure but totally unprepared to deal with anything but sunny weather and a nice clear day.

      So one very overcast Saturday morning at the end March (So much for skiving off school) we set off in the teachers old van towards the Welsh border. Although over six foot tall and of a reasonable build he was a rather timid teacher with a nice nature and good intentions, but absolutely no control over his pupils. The poor guy, god bless him, was stuck with a bunch of kids whose only intention was to get in as much trouble as possible and have a good time in doing so.

The journey from the school to Llanrhaeadr-ym-Mochnant was around twenty five miles and took about one hour to get there. We of course misbehaved all the way and it was a wonder we ever arrived judging by the amount of times the teacher threatened to turn back. The route follows the old road along the Tanat valley through beautiful rolling countryside. The area was featured in the film with Hugh Grant "The Englishman who went up a hill and came down a mountain,"  and it plays host to some of the most wonderful untouched scenery in Wales. The Berwyns are a ridge of mountains that cover an area just over the Welsh border, North to South from Llangollen to Lake Vyrnwy. Most of the upland area is moorland covered in heather and peat. Although difficult to walk through it has a wild beauty of untouched serenity. On reaching Llanrhaeadr-ym-Mochnant we took a narrow lane up into the heart of the Berwyn mountains until it ended at the foot of the highest waterfall in Wales.

      I was equipped with a cheap pair of workman's boots with steel toecaps from the local market, a cheap  blue nylon cagoule, and an old canvass rucksack with a steel frame and solid leather straps, once wet it weighed an absolute  ton. I had my Dad’s plastic Post Office workers waterproof leggings (about ten sizes too big), a pair of woolly gloves, along with a woolly hat which completed my highly stylish and sophisticated equipment. My rucksack contained a  large pack of Spam sandwiches, wrapped up in a Motherspride bread wrapping, an old tin flask and enough spangles (A kind of boiled sweet) to last the trip. The other kids in the group were equipped more or less the same, only the teacher had what one would regard as proper equipment, although we did have a good laugh at  his britches.

      We parked the van in the car park in front of the spectacular two hundred foot high waterfall at Pistol Llanraeder which crashes down through a stone archway into a cold icy pool below a massive solid lump of rock. As expected someone from the back of the van commented, that it was in fact actually pistoling it down out side, much to the amusement of this intrepid bunch of pioneers. The rain was by now starting to turn to sleet and the tops of the mountains had vanished under a shroud of thick grey swirling cloud. Off we set with great gusto ploughing through the mud up the track that runs up the side of the hill then turns back on its self to the top of the waterfall. Within a couple of minutes as the gradient got steeper and steeper and all of us quickly became completely soaked through to the skin, absolutely gasping for breath. The kids following their leader became very, very quiet as they gasped to take in as much air as possible just to keep up. So much for the super fit pioneers who had been ready to conquer Everest.

As the group climbed slowly further and further up the mountain through rough grass and boggy peat, the rain and sleet slowly turned to snow driven by a strong North wind. Suddenly the enthusiasm we all had at the

start returned once more. Kids and snow is a deadly mix in anyone's book. The poor old teacher was bombarded from the back and constantly had to fend of mysterious snowballs that appeared out of thin air. However the snow was now getting thicker and thicker as we slowly gained height. Each step became harder and harder as the snow deepened and the wind became more fierce. The terrain had become a featureless white blur with a bitter cold wind striking our faces and driving snow into our unprotected eyes. The snowballs had long since dried up as we approached the final climb to the top of the ridge. We all took it in turn to carry the old teachers  ice axe, an ancient relic that would not look out of place on the 1920s Everest expeditions. It had a large wooden shaft and a head of rusty black steel; the darn thing was so heavy it almost took two of us to lift it. However after reading the great adventure stories concerning the climbs of Everest by Mallory or Irvine, every time one of us held that axe, we each felt we were following in the footsteps of these two great mountain climbers, Except Gary who looked more like Sherpa Tenzing but that's another story.

        Thank God our leader had a map and Compass and knew how to use it. The conditions became quite severe, not that any of us cared, somehow we never even felt the cold as we just carried on blindly trusting in the teachers ability. The visibility was none existent and other then the teacher none of us had a clue were we where. I would imagine today; in this world of political correctness that our teachers actions would be regarded as irresponsible and foolhardy. It’s such a shame however that this type of adventure has now completely disappeared. Teachers are terrified to take kids on the hills because we now live in a world wrapped in cotton wool, do-gooders and legislation.

By midday we stopped for lunch and found what little scant cover we could find, to protect us from the relentless snow, driven by a gale force North wind. Our lunch-break was a mixture of devouring what basic food we carried and all of us trying to build an igloo, the latter being a complete failure and farce, but great fun anyway. However by the early afternoon the conquerors had at last reached their goal, the summit of Moel Sych. We had conquered the Berwyn’s! Of course today, I now know the top is further along the ridge, but on our old canvas map this was the top and we intended to celebrate the fact. It’s so funny to look back now but it must have looked a hilarious sight, a bunch of scruffy looking kids and a teacher with a big wide grin across his face, dancing around the top of this white windswept peak. Such was the joy of achievement and shear bliss of being in this alien environment. This was my first mountain and nobody will ever be able to take away the memory and feeling of elation I had at that precise moment, all the mountains I have climbed and all the walks I have done since, will never touch the memory of that precise moment. We all have to start somewhere and this was my first.

Later that afternoon we carried on along to a break on the ridge that leads to a path that runs down to Llyn Lluncaws a small lake that sits at the foot of Moel Sych. The group then slowly made its way back down the steep track that runs into the heart of the cym under Moel Sych passing Llyn Lluncaws just under the ridge. The track after we left the snow field became extensively muddy and wet as it slowly approached the side of the lake. As I looked back towards the grey mass of rock disappearing into thick swirling cloud I felt a strange exhilaration with a touch of sadness, that this my first mountain adventure was so quickly over. What a very sorry sight we must have looked, soaked to the skin and covered in muck. However the smiles on our faces and the sound of laughter emulating from this sorry bunch would have melted even the coldest of hearts. I don't know whether it was tiredness or a touch of hysteria but we laughed and joked all the way down the valley back to the car park. After about one hour following the old sheep track down the valley we arrived back at the old van by the waterfall and all piled into the rear, laughing, joking, covered head to toe in muck and very, very tired.

           I can’t remember the journey back; none of us can, except the teacher. All of us were fast asleep until we reached the car park at the school. He did tell me a few years later before he died, that the look on all of our faces that day, is what makes all the effort in teaching to him worthwhile. He was a rare man who knew the true meaning of giving  and I for one was glad to have known him.

            I have also taken youngsters on the hills, over a number of years and I was later involved in taking a group of kids from my old school on a much longer journey across the spine of Wales. Although the kids I've taken since were much better equipped then ever we were, I know from the feedback I’ve received, that if just one kid in twenty, is bitten by this bug that feeds our passion for being on the mountains and feeling free, then yes, it has all been worthwhile. I feel deeply sorry for the hundreds of kids that never have the pleasure of feeling the cool mountain wind in their faces, or looking across a crystal clear sky into a perfect mountain sunset.

David.

Llyn Lluncaws sitting quietly under the cover of the main Berwyn Ridge.