Anniversary hike and swim

 In July last year I went on the first date with a guy called Neil. Two dates later he made his rather muted debut on the blog. And I suppose the rest is history. And now it is July again. I thought it would be good too do something to commemorate the anniversary of that first date. It has been in the middle of a heatwave, and we had gone for a walk, with a little swim in a lake to cool down. 

Last year, the lake in question had been Geirionnydd, but I prefer my lakes a bit less busy and polluted. I suggested  Cwm Lloer this time. Neil was up for it. And because of where it is, we could take the bus in. So Neil came to me first, and then we went to the bus stop together.

It was quite nice walking weather. Warm, but not scorching! And we walked quite leisurely up in the direction of the lake, along the stream. I was trying my hybrid shoes as hiking shoes. I was wondering if that would be more comfortable on my feet, while still being sturdy enough. 

By a stile Neil suggested we have a little break. He was a bit warm. I was up for that! We didn't intend a huge walk, so we had all the time in the world. And after a while, a lad appeared, and decided to have a little break there too. He was from Wolverhampton, and had fairly recently started to explore North Wales. We had a really nice chat.

Then we went on. Not a lot later, we came to the lake. There was one small cluster of people already there, but that wasn't very surprising. On a day like that! And the lake is big enough to accommodate two small clusters of people, and still give everyone a sense of privacy.

Lake selfie

It is such a gorgeous area! You look right at the cliff of Pen yr Ole Wen. It is quite quiet. We put our bags down and decided to go for a swim first. And the other cluster of people was so far away, and there was no sign of any additional people, that I went in the nip. Neil was too British for that. It was lovely!

Our view (pic doesn’t do it justice)

We had our lunch there too. We took our time. And when we finally got onto our feet again we hadn’t decided yet we would do after reaching the summit of Prn yr Ole Wen. We would see.

When we go to the summit I figured I preferred to go straight down to the road, and catch the bus back, rather than walk all the way back home. I just didn't expect water to materialise anytime soon. And I didn't have a lot left. Neil was fine with that, so we accepted the descent. 

The top of the descent 

It is quite a steep descent, and some of it has a lot of loose rock. That is a bit trying, but the shoes did a fine job. I did wonder if the main issue here was that I was wearing them out a bit quickly. Might be worth it though, if it is better for my feet.

When we were right by a steep cliff I suddenly spotted a bag. A bag? There was no accompanying person anywhere in sight. We called out, but no one materialised. Sometimes finding a bag in the mountains is really bad news. It might mean that someone has come to a sticky end. But this was absolutely not a dangerous part of the route. What would have happened? 

We decided to leave it there, but make a note of its location, and take a picture. We could notify Mountain Rescue.

We continued our way down, and got to the road without issues. We still had a bit of time before the bus would come, so we checked if there was a water station by the visitor centre. There wasn't, but there was a National Trust warden's office there, with the door open. Neil stomped inside, and asked the person in there, a young man called Rhys, if they perhaps knew anything about someone missing a bag. Strangely enough, the answer was yes! 

We heard the whole story. A bloke had been in the mountains, and put his back down at some point. Unfortunately, it wasn't stable, and it started rolling, and fallen down a cliff. He had been looking for it, but never found it. That was a problem, as apparently, his wallet, phone and car keys had been in there. It turned out that he had had to have his car towed home. And that was quite some distance away. Rhys had his contact details. 

Where we had found the bag it wasn't conspicuous, simply because it was muted green, but it was on the main path. We wondered if someone else had found it and put it in a more obvious location. I suppose everybody is hesitant to remove a bag just in case the owner is coming back for it. But now we knew that the owner had gone home. We could safely remove it.

I thought it would be silly to leave it on the mountain knowing what we knew, so I created a quick plan. What if one of us would take the bus home, and the other one would go and retrieve the bag. We could bring the bag back to the National Trust office, and the person who had gone home by bus could pick the other one up by car. The bus only goes every two hours, and we didn't want to wait that long. And with Neil blocking me in, it had to be him who went home. He was OK with that. 

Rhys offered me some water, but he only had it in a water cooler, and that gave me a massive brain freeze. Neil let me drink some of his leftover water. That would have to do. I gave him my bag, as I didn't want to carry two of them, and went back up the hill.

It only took me some 25 minutes to get back to the bag. And a similar amount of time to come back down. When I came back to the road, Neil was already waiting for me. When he had got back with his car, he could see a little dot descending the mountain, and had come to welcome me. With a full bottle of water in his hand! He knows me a bit. This water wasn't brain freeze temperature.

We brought the bag back, had an additional little chat with Rhys, and then went home. I hope the owner of the bag is glad it has been retrieved. He might have some more adventures with it now. But I think he will be more selective where he puts it down.

I could tell I had done that last bit of the adventure with not enough water, but it has been worth it. Even if the bag never finds it way back to the owner, at least it is not confusing people in the mountains anymore. And if it would stay there for too long, it would become litter and that is not good either.

It hadn't panned out as I had expected, but it had been a worthy anniversary walk! Onward, to the next year with Neil!