Collected Musings of a Hill Wanderer

Now that the leaves on the trees and well into the throes of changing colour and a chill has returned to the air, thoughts turn towards the shorter days that lie ahead of us. It is all too easy after the climax of a summer break like that which I enjoyed on Scotland’s islands (the next installment of that trip report is in the works so it should appear here soon) to hibernate, especially when the weather offers us only discouragement. So, some ideas erupted into my mind while perusing an outdoors magazine on the bus to work this morning. Local hill country always beckons when the days are shorter but there are other options too. For one thing, I haven’t been over the border in Derbyshire for a while and reaching the likes of Shropshire, Staffordshire or South Yorkshire is a possibility too; it often amazes me where the mind roves when the mood takes it. Even this loosely compiled catalog of options could come in useful should an opportunity take me by surprise. The next stage would be to add more flesh to the bones of this skeleton so that I simply could take an idea off some metaphorical shelf at a moment’s notice. It might be the difference between my getting out there and staying put at home.

Deciding when our seasons start and end is probably a thankless task given the wide variation in the weather with the Azores High not doing what we’d like it to do more often than not and Atlantic storms getting under way whenever they will. Add global warming to the mix and it gets even more confusing. It all makes observing sort of convention look futile.

Yet, conventions do come into place and according to the one employed by the British Met Office, today is the first day of autumn. It’s also the first day of the new school year around where I live and, as if to show that it knows when the new school year is starting, the sun has made its appearance this morning after a murky, damp and misty weekend. However, the signs of autumnal colour have been creeping up on us slowly over the last few weeks. Add to that the fact the August was for many people a wet disappointment and it would make more sense to consider that autumn has started already. In fact, my primary schooling in Ireland taught me that August was the first month of autumn. The Irish language itself follows suit in that its names for September and October translate into English as mid-autumn and late autumn, respectively. It’s something that makes me wonder about autumn starting in the middle of August and winter beginning in mid-November. That might be how it feels for me but I have no intention of mounting a fruitless challenge to convention. I’ll be sticking to savouring the best of what the season brings and I hope that you will find something to enjoy too.

We humans are a fickle bunch when it comes to weather and I am no different. My ideal walking conditions involve a dry sunny day with a bit of a breeze and temperatures between 10 and 20 degrees Celsius (I have to say that the Fahrenheit temperature scale is next to meaningless for me). Over the course of this year, I have been battling that easy inclination to stay at home on grey days or any time when rain threatens. While it can be a good way of keeping you at home to get things done, you can overdo it too and never get out there at all.

I think that you could ask any walker and they’d suggest that soggy days are a turn off but I have thought of another one: hot boiling sweltering sunny days like what we had at the end of July. Some adore these but I don’t think that they’ve ever really suited me; I suppose that we all differ from one other. To me, it could be seen as being just as unpleasant for hiking as getting constantly soaked. In fact, if you don’t watch it, the health consequences of being out in boiling heat could be worse than wet weather. Hydration is very much part of this and OutdoorsMAGIC recently posted a very useful article on the subject that provides some food for thought. Otherwise, head coverage, keeping well watered, using good sun screen and finding the occasional shady rest spot to keep yourself together is all very much in order.

What has put this idea into my head was my going for a circular hike around Welshpool that took in a part of the Offa’s Dyke Path a few weeks back. I experienced the sort of weather whose absence is source of many a moan. Last year was a case in point but those who were on the receiving end of the deluges last July really did have cause for complaint. Its timing was unfortunate in the sense that it happened during the summer school holidays and it might be all that some remember of 2007, a travesty given the wonderful start that the year had. Even though I too have fallen victim to this notion of a summer climax, I am beginning to come around to the delights of a cooler if damper summer, particularly when it comes to wandering through hill country. Another downside to this idea of there being a climax to the year is that your outdoor outings plummet in frequency once August has passed. It’s all too easy to do and I know because it tends to happen to me. It’s almost as if I hibernate until December when I manage to get going in earnest again. That’s a pity because autumn can have lots of special moments to offer.

Speaking of autumn, it has a lot to offer those who wander through hill country. The days might be shorter but they are cooler also and without being too chilly. Destinations that are thronged in July and August are quieter, just like they were in April and May. After all of that, there’s the glorious autumnal colour that can come upon us, depending on the year (drier summers are better for this, apparently). The ambiance might be like the calm after a storm or, if you prefer, after the climax but there’s much to savour in the mellowness.

I have often talked of my liking of spring on here and I now want to make better use of the delights of autumn but there’s another matter taking up occupancy in my head: is it worthwhile scaling back summer walking a little and devoting a bit more attention to the rest of the year? For one thing. the ever present threat of global warming might well make this approach something of a necessity.

It’s amazing how some months fly by you and others go slower than you would like. I have come to like the passing of the winter solstice because it heralds what I think to be the best part of the year for wandering through the countryside. Yes, the trees may be as bare as the landscape that surrounds them for what seems like eons but that has its attractions too. The summertime hoards are but a brief memory and there are ample opportunities for life detoxification in those wide open spaces. Those months before the greenery makes its appointed appearance allow you clear your mental clutter in time for when the countryside is clothed in a most wonderful lusciousness. For me, May and June should be the holiday months rather than July and August. The current arrangement means that year is slightly past its best when most have time to savour it but it also might mean that places are less crowded for connoisseurs of such wonders.

That curious timing of the summer holiday season brings me to my thoughts on the summer solstice. If its winter counterpart is a reminder of all that is wondrous, the longest day of the year is all the poorer for its pointing out that the only way from here is down. True, the colours of the countryside in autumn can be staggeringly beautiful but the whole feeling of decline and the passing of yet another year means that you need to work harder to keep up that interest in hill wandering. Apart from those colours, that decline has its uses, though, and you need only need to encounter an overgrown public footpath (I have been on a good few in north Wales…) to realise the benefits of winter’s chill. Anyway, without all the dying off that happens in the second half of the year, all the growth of the first would never seem so wonderful. Speaking of spring, the longest day of the year is also an impertinent reminder of what you have and haven’t been doing with regard to appreciating nature over the previous months. If you have been too busy to enjoy spring, then it’s a rearguard campaign to savour the countryside at next to its best before it’s too late and you feel that another year is gone out of your life without your making the best of it. Yes, those enticing months can often seem too short and the idea of taking more time away from the daily grind becomes a most tempting prospect.

After the Mayday bank holiday weekend, I promised to add a trip report for a day outing to North Wales but the combination of its being May and our having some decent weather have meant that my attention has dashed off elsewhere. It’s hard not to be tempted by the outdoors at this time of year with all of the colours that abound. In addition to the fresh verdant green of the new foliage, the list becomes a very long one. Here’s a cursory summary: the magnetic hues of the glades of bluebells, the white of hawthorn blossom and the catkins on horse chestnut trees, the yellow of the flowering gorse and the pink of the cherry blossom. There are more (that ever present invader, rhododendron, comes to mind) but what I have listed is enough to send you off somewhere when some sunshine is on offer. The result is that I have spent evenings in the outdoors near my home in Cheshire and another trek to Wales ensued. To cap it all, I have just spent a glorious weekend in Argyll and am kicking myself for not allowing an extra day for making even more of it than I did. Just catch Aktoman’s photos from his recent trek in the Cairngorms to see what I mean; it makes my exertions look minor in comparison and I wish that I had pushed the boat out more than I did. All of that means more trip reports so I’d better get cracking sometime. Of course, the trick is making the time but the weather looks to be damper over the coming days; that might allow me the time to settle the matter.

Today’s warm sunny weather can only make one think that summer has arrived. If it had arrived before the bank holiday weekend and continued throughout, I am sure that many would have been heading towards the seaside. However, it didn’t happen that way and the fairer weather only pulled into Wales yesterday. That allowed me some time to head over to northwest Wales for some hill wandering. The full trip report for that escapade will follow there may be more if the good weather lasts.