Mountain top to lake in March

The great weather was still holding up! Time for another venture into the hills. Kate agreed, and suggested something that would involve Dinorwic Quarry and the hilltop above it. And it sounded good! And we met at the high parking lot, where we just about found space to park. And in the glorious sunshine we walked up through the quarry until we reached the road. From there, there was a path to the top; neither of us had done that part of the route before. And without incident we reached the summit. We had been there before! And again it was gorgeous. And Kate had been thinking about looping back around the left, but I suggested we loop around the right instead, basically coming down how the previous time we had come up. That way we would come down back to the level of the quarry, and walk through it back to our cars. And that's what we did. And we had lunch on the hillside. 

View into the quarry

On Elidir Fach

On Elidir Fach

View from Elidir Fawr

Coming back into the valley

Scenic bridge

The path back into the quarry

The path back into the quarry was gorgeous! I was glad that we had done that. And when we got back to the cars, Kate said she was going to jump into Llyn Padarn. Did I want to join? And that lake is quite busy, so not a place where you can jump in in your birthday suit. And I had bad memories of getting in in my underwear, which I had once done after a race. But she said she had another bathing suit with her and that sealed the deal! I made sure to put it on there and then, as I figured it would be easier to do that on our remote parking lot with no one else around than at super busy Llyn Padarn. 

We drove down, found a parking spot, and got ready. And then it was time to walk into the water. I found it cold, and felt slow and a sissy. But when I got in, Kate was expressing her surprise at me already swimming. She was taking her time! But she was wearing neoprene socks, and I wasn't, and the first thing that gets too cold is always my feet. So I swam a bit and then got out again. Kate was quite comfortable and didn't look like she was coming out at all. She wondered if I was going to come back and I did. I swam a few more loops. But I didn't want to push it and I came out again. But she didn't stay an awful lot longer so we dried off and got back to the cars. I was cold by then! But it had been good. And I managed to get out of the bathing suit without offending public decency too much as well. So we hugged and each went our way. Quite an excellent day with both a mountaintop in it and my first swim of the year! I can't remember when the last time I was swimming in open water in March…