Unexpectedly good morning in the field

After an amazingly sunny first day in the field for my Earth, Climate and Evolution module, the second trip was coming up: the one to Cwm Idwal. I kept a bit of an eye on weather forecast. Two days beforehand, it looked like it could go either way. But the day before, I had my head firmly in Athena Swan business, desperately trying to finish something, and I failed to check the latest updates.

Then an email came in from Jaco. We tend to ask timetabling to keep three days free, in case we have to cancel one trip for weather reasons. Or any other reason, really. So there was a backup! And the weather forecast had made a clear decision: it was going for really bad. Just rain the whole morning. We would only be in the field in the morning! And he suggested we cancel, and use the contingency date. But it was late in the day. Would the students notice if we would cancel? Could we still cancel the coaches? What about students who wouldn't be travelling by coach? I struggled a bit with the decision. I phoned Katrien, and we decided we would just be there in the morning. If the conditions really looked atrocious, we could just turn back to campus. By now, we would have had to pay for the coaches anyway. And the students would all know what would be going on. And have a say in it.

We gathered in the morning and it wasn't particularly bad. So we went for it! It was even not raining when we got to where the coach drops us off. And it was a very still day. It can be very blowy in there, and that makes things a lot worse!

As usual, we split the students up in four groups, and we did our usual circumnavigation around the lake. I really enjoyed the trip. It's a beautiful area, and we have interesting things to say. Or at least, I find them interesting. And I thought I had a pleasant group! They were also dressed so that they were quite comfortable in the weather conditions. That's important, and not always the case.

Starting to walk towards the Cwm

The stream looked good

My group was also not very big, because Lynda had brought her dog; she attracted a disproportionate number of students. But she knew that that would be the case; she had tried this before, and she was okay with it. And by the looks of it, the dog had a whale over time! Whether her group will remember much of the geology I don't know…

It all went well. There was barely any rain! The views were not so good though. I don't think any of the groups saw the famous Devil’s Kitchen syncline. Nor Tryfan, or the tops of any of the mountains. But we pretty much saw everything else!

The lake looking mysterious in the mist

At the back of the valley 

When we got back to the parking lot I was keen to leave quite promptly. Normally there are toilets there, but because of some malfunction of shorts, that day there weren’t. And some students indicated a certain level of urgency.

On this module, I now only have one quiz-style revision session left. All the other teaching is done! Term is coming to an end!