Collected Musings of a Hill Wanderer

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.

After a mini-heatwave, we seem to have returned to more run-of-the-mill British weather again. Not being a fan of hot weather, I am not sorry even if it means that things are little damper. That heat made the past weekend none too ideal for a spot of hill wandering but July seemed to slip by without such an outing and, on Sunday, I headed off to Welshpool for a circular hike regardless. It was to be a day for protecting oneself from the effects of strong sun and intense heat. There was a threat of showers but I was long esconced at home by the time that one happened on Macclesfield and none was to cool me down on my way around Montgomeryshire.

The travel arrangements were easy: take a train to Wolverhampton and change there for the last leg of the journey both on the way out and the way back. Public transport arrangements aren’t that easy sometimes so this was one of the simpler days. The journey wasn’t too long either with a departure not long before 09:00 landing me in Welshpool at around 11:25. Even with departing at about 18:50, I was back home well before 22:00.

Being allotted a good amount of time, I decided not to force myself and to watch how much walking I was doing, understandable given the weather on the day. I started with a quick amble about Welshpool before heading for the hills and it actually looks a reasonably pleasant town. My escape into the countryside took me north along the Montgomery canal, part of the Severn Way, until I came within reach of the Offa’s Dyke Path. Crossing from one trail to the other did mean some crossing of busy roads and a building site for a new livestock market. Once past those obstacles, I joined the aforementioned national trail at Buttington to proceed through fields where cereals are growing before the I hit the slopes. The hinterland of the Severn clearly has its fertile spots.

As with other parts of the Offa’s Dyke Path, the hills to the east of Welshpool are not that high but they are steep-sided. I found the same sort of topography around Knighton and the hill country north around Ruthin, Llangollen and Chirk also shares this characteristic. The day was getting hotter all the while so I took my time ascending the slopes until they levelled out a bit as I neared Beacon Ring fort, the highest point of my hike at around 400 metres above sea level. From there on, the terrain stayed more friendly with its ups and downs and forest cover was on offer for a good of the journey down to Forden where I left the Offa’s Dyke Path to return to Welshpool.

That return involved a lot of road walking, never a pleasant thing and not helped by boiling heat or having to keep an eye out for combine harvesters and their ilk. A plan for using the public footpath network to cut down on the tarmac bashing came to nought when I saw what my map’s suggestion crossed: a field with growing crops and no obvious way through. In any case, it was better not to attempt tricky navigation in the heat.

As I continued on, I took advantage of any shade for a rest when it offered and it is for that reason that I took a break beside a high hedge near Welshpool’s airport. After negotiating roundabout that thankfully wasn’t too busy at the time, I made my way up a quiet lane that took me again onto the Montgomery canal and the Severn Way for the last stretch of the way into Welshpool. By now, the heat was such that I was glad to be reaching my journey’s end for the day and, when I did make Welshpool, I found a quiet and well appreciated shady spot for a bit of recuperation before catching the train home again.

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.

That prospect of two dry days with a wet one in between certainly put paid to any ideas of spending a few days away progressing my Pennine Way walking project. Even then, the wonderful British weather ensures that you can’t hope for each of those dry days to frequent the same location. The result was yesterday saw me go exploring Teesdale, sampling a short stretch of the aforementioned long distance trail in advance of more concerted trekking along its length around those parts. Plans for tomorrow see me looking to the west while I rest my legs after yesterday’s exertions, in between the other things that need doing of course. A full trip report report for my Teesdale outing should come soon and we shall see what happens tomorrow.