Margot's Blog: Cnicht with Kate

25 November 2021

Cnicht with Kate

I had finished a big marking job, and published the dissertation allocations. I decided I was allowed a break! I hadn't been on a walk since Tal-y-Fan with Kate, and it was time for a bigger walk than that. And she was up for it. And the weather forecast for the Sunday looked good! But that meant we needed to decide where to go. Kate was on a mission to visit some peaks she hadn't got around to her time in Wales so far, and she hadn't done Cnicht yet! So that was our goal. And we met up at nine in Croesor. The drive there was beautiful through the trees with some remaining yellow leaves, lit up by the morning sun. This could be a good day.

We went up to the top and it was beautiful. You don't get November days like that very often! And from there we needed to decide how to get back. I had been thinking of looping back over the North, but Kate preferred the south. There were several options there. We could just take the big path that runs past the entrance of Croesor mine, or the path that runs a bit below that, or over the old tramline and then down the very steep incline on the northside of the valley. We decided we would head for the tramline, and then decide what to do; if Kate didn't like the look of it (I've walked it before) we could just turn back and head for the path on the other side anyway. And that's what we did!

Kate didn't like the incline, so we went back and went down the path. But when we got to an incline leading to the bottom of the valley we couldn't resist and went down it. I had never been there! And if we walked down the bottom of the valley we would get more sun. And that worked.

I was glad I had let myself out of the office for a day! What a day it was. And it was good to see Kate. I don't know how much longer she will live in the area and it was nice to get a hike in. And I had done Cnicht several times before, but its views will keep amazing me!