A walk in the woods: Breidden Hill and Rodney's Pillar

As part of my recent decision (I don't do resolutions) to 'eat better and exercise more', we decided yesterday to take a walk up Breidden Hill to the Rodney's Pillar monument at the top. It was a beautiful, dry, but misty and chilly day and since we have never been up there in colder times of year we thought it'd be a good opportunity to stretch the winter legs, and give Tom some practice with his new SLR. As we neared the hills the mist got thicker and thicker, and we had to slow right down on the narrower roads that led past the quarry entrance and to the car park at the bottom of the hill.

Despite having walked the hill on numerous occasions as a child with my family and a fair few times in the last few years, I started to wonder whether it was a good idea to head up in such conditions. We'd left it quite late to set off and we would only have a couple of hours before the sun would set and daylight would start to diminish. To follow the fairly easy route of the main 'road' would take us longer to get up and down and we would most likely end up having to use the torches to get back down.

But equally the 'shortcut' that cut through the woods on the slopes would be more physically demanding (don't get me wrong, it's no Kilimanjaro but I for one don't have a lot of stamina, plus I'd already done a fair bit of exercise that day on the Wii Fit and Just Dance3 so my legs were already pretty tired), and would also throw up more obstacles - the steeper woodland route is littered with well worn stones that provide little grip underfoot, the occasional fallen tree, and the thin carpet of needles, decaying leaves, and in places frosted grass have to be navigated carefully if you didn't want to end up on your knees or bum. In places the ground would also be muddy and damp, as the route would frequently join the steep V where water runs downhill - it's not really enough to call it a stream or even a brook really at this time of year.

In the end we thought it best if we took the woodland route up at least to get us to the top in time to catch the sunset and then decide how best to get down once we knew how much daylight we had left. The shortcut was indeed a bit knackering for me, but despite stopping every now and then to take photos (and breathers) we managed to make it to the bottom of the summit just in time to catch the sun going down.

L Bardsley, 14.01.12

After stopping a while for Tom to have a play with all the different settings on his camera, we continued up to the monument, which is the steepest part of the walk. Having been under woodland cover for the latter part of the walk, the sudden exposure to the elements took me a bit by surprise - the temperature plummeted and the wind started to really bite and buffet. I'd been relatively comfortable in what I'd been wearing so far, just a hoody, fingerless gloves, normal trousers, thick socks and trainers, as I knew the climb would warm me up and didn't want to be wearing really bulky clothes that would get in the way and overheat me. There's not much more annoying than having to carry bulky clothes that are too warm to wear when you're trying to enjoy a walk. But as soon as we started up the summit I instantly regretted not bringing a hat, scarf, or proper gloves.

Like I said I don't have a great amount of stamina and my legs were really aching at this point, so I had to take baby steps the rest of the way up, with my Wii Fit trainer's annoyingly calm voice resounding in my head: "Try counting out loud. One. Two. One. Two." Annoying as it was it did help me keep going, as I knew that if I broke rhythm even for a second it'd be difficult to get going again. I did stop once I think to catch my breath and take a couple of photos, but the freezing wind instantly turned my fingers to ice so I wasn't desperate to hang about for too long. Finally at the top, red-faced from the cold wind and the exertion (I always go red in the face when doing any kind of exercise), and panting heavily, I joined Tom on the western side of the pillar.

As I mentioned before I've been up the hill loads of times before, but every time I'm taken aback by the amazing views. On a clear day you get panoramic views of the whole valley floor below, and we always used to have fun as children trying to pick out landmarks we knew so well at ground level - the Arddleen road, the sheer cliffs of the Llanymynech Golf Course by Pant, the humpbacked bridge at Llandrinio that was always the first point that the River Severn would burst it banks. And out behind you all the other hills that I've yet to explore.
But on this cold and misty day the view was like nothing I've seen with my own eyes before. To the west, the valley below was completely obscured by a thick fluffy layer of low cloud, that made it look as if it wasn't in fact a valley, but a frozen lake, or even like the frothy seas crashing around some far away archipelago, reminding me of the stunning scenery from the Lord of the Rings films, and the beautiful and mysterious Hawaiian islands of the TV series Lost. I tried my best to capture it with my camera phone (despite my fingers screaming out to stay inside the warm pockets of the hoody), but with my poor knowledge of camera functions, and the fact that my hands were shaking with the cold, this was the best I could do.

After a while we both agreed that it was getting too cold and the sun was really beginning to disappear, so we started heading back down the hill. Whereas earlier I'd lamented my ill-chosen attire for reasons of warmth, now, as I skidded and stumbled down the slopes of the summit, I cursed myself for not owning a proper pair of walking boots. In a race to beat the rapidly disappearing daylight on steep and treacherous slopes and woodland paths (yes, we took the shortcut route again), Converse trainers are probably the worst thing to wear, second only to the more obviously ridiculous flip-flops and high heels.

Whilst it was clearly a bit nerve-wracking trying to hastily navigate the less forgiving short-cut, it was also quite exhilarating leading the way through the woods at this twilight hour, scrabbling down banks and over the fallen trees, jogging past boulders, and leaping awkwardly over muddy patches. Looking back at it now, I'm reminded of all those children's stories I used to read (and occasionally attempt to write), of plucky Enid Blyton characters going off to explore the wilderness of the countryside, occasionally finding something magical, occasionally something frightening, and at the end of the day hurrying to get home for tea before Mother and Father got worried and called the local constable to set up a search party.

Still it was a relief to finally leave the woods and re-join the bumpy road that slowly wound its way down the hill to where the cars were parked at the bottom. At least now we wouldn't have to worry about slipping on some loose stones and twisting an ankle, or pitching head first down an embankment. And even if it started to get dark there was no way we could get lost on the road. I suppose the relief was also down to an underlying fear of being stuck in the woods in the dark. Although I've walked up the hill many times, there are so many paths that lead up and down that you could probably take a slightly different route each day for a year. I'm probably exaggerating, but when things get dark and torchlight shadows confuse your sense of direction, (and when you've just started reading a Dean Koontz about strange encounters in the Colorado mountains) then the mind starts playing tricks on you. I wasn't really prepared to find out what that felt like outside of my imagination.

Now at an easy pace we walked side by side down the bumpy road. As we continued downwards, the mist seemed like it was slowly working its way in the opposite direction, towards us, up the hill. As if, like us, it was returning to its home at the end of the day (again, I probably have Lost and Dean Koontz to blame for that particular train of thought). As we walked along the last stretch of road than ran level with the park area below, the orange glow from a lamp post illuminated a telephone box down below that we hadn't noticed on the way up. The panes of glass were frosted over and although there was no snow, the pale wintery light made it look like a scene out of C.S. Lewis' 'The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe'. In my imagination, I half expected to catch a glimpse of the fawn Mr Tumnus peeping through the windows of the telephone box, and then making a sneaky, guilt-ridden call to the Witch to inform her of our arrival.

Back at the car park, there were still a few other vehicles besides ours. I couldn't imagine who would want to still be up the hill at this time of day. While Tom went off to take some photos of the softly illuminated, frosted phone box, I got the engine going and tried to coax my frozen fingers and chilled and achy limbs back into life, and reflected on a tiring but very satisfying afternoon's walk.

Some more pictures can be found here.

Until next time,
xx