Do I need to say more? I didn’t think I’d be posting many if any new funky place name entries, but today I found these two ‘hamlets’ in remarkably close proximity to each other:
Hole. Wouldn’t you love to live in a place called Hole? Just for the novelty.
Holes Hole!!! Huh?
Utter genius, I mean seriously? Holes Hole? I’d love to know the origins of some of these names…
The land of clotted cream teas and the Hound of the Baskervilles, yes, I’m back in Devon again, this time for a month or so. Sadly this isn’t a month-long cake and climbing orgy, but a month of driving and work again (for anyone unfamiliar with this blog, I came down here back in March for two weeks to work doing some radio drive testing, and now I’m back doing it again, but in more detail and with slightly modified kit). Despite having my climbing and outdoorsy-ness suddenly curtailed, I am actually glad to be down here as a) I’m earning money and b) I’m going to spend some time on Dartmoor. Hell I may even wangle c) some climbing in Cornwall…
So anyway, the blog may be a bit quiet for the next month or so, unless anything interesting happens. The vast majority of my time will be spent simply driving, although the nature of the roads and the area mean that ‘simply driving’ can be somewhat more difficult than one might think…
Yes, that is a tree across the road. Yes the road was a very narrow single track where I couldn’t turn around. Yes I had to reverse back up it through the ruts and with both wing mirrors in the hedges on each side simultaneously. Yes it was about half a mile back to the junction where I could finally turn. Yes I was laughing the whole time.
For anyone that knows me, the idea that I have decided to gain the Mountain Leader qualification may be rather suprising, but there you go, I’ve registered with the MLTW and have a log book and everything, I just need to fill it.
And that’s why I’ve managed to get up off of my lazy butt and go for another decent hill walk, up another mountain I had yet to experience – Aran Fawddwy.
Situated not far from the village of Dinas Mawddwy, Aran Fawddwy is the 16th highest peak in Wales at 905m (and is only 9m off being classed as one of the Welsh 3000’ers), but being relatively inaccessible is actually pretty quiet.
The route I took went from Cwm Cywarch (parking, and also a massive set of crags I’m desperate to climb on, so if anyone fancies some slightly adventurous rock climbing and would be willing to head back here with me, please drop me a line!), up to Waun Camddwr, along the ridge bog boardwalks, across a completely unnecessary section of marsh where I realised that not following the fence had been a mistake, back to the fence line and up to the summit. The descent was back down Drws Bach, past the cairn (which is a memorial to Michael Robert Aspain a member of an RAF Mountain Rescue team based in St Athan who was killed there by a lightning strike in 1960 whilst on duty. He was 18 years old.) and onto Drysgol, eventually heading down the long dull slog of a path back to Cwm Cywarch.
Have some pictures.
A pretty valley view
Another long silence for which I will apologise, despite knowing that no-one cares about the apology…
I arrived back home late on Thursday after a marathon drive home from Arolla, Valais, Switzerland. Yes, I’ve been back to the Alps! This wasn’t an ordinary Alpine climbing trip though, this trip doubled as mine and Phil’s summer holiday, and also my first meeting with Alex*.
Sadly, the weather was once again against us and we got very little done climbing-wise (only one super easy ‘acclimatisation’ route and some bimbling on a cruddy little sport crag actually, although the chilling out and wandering the valleys was really rather lovely), but I would just like to confirm that the campsite in Arolla is fabulous for bumming around on continually making tea and eating biscuits, although needing 1F coins for the shower is a little bit of a pain.
Anyway…
The Normal Route on the Pigne d’Arolla, 3796m (Facile)
The Pigne d’Arolla is a lovely mountain at the head of the valley overlooking Arolla itself. Two huts serve as bases for an ascent – the Vignettes hut and the Dix hut. Often the peak is climbed in conjunction with Mont Blanc du Cheilon as a long traverse – the route up and over the Pigne being graded Facile, and the ascent of the East ridge of Mont Blanc du Cheilon being graded AD (the normal route on MBdC, and the descent from the traverse is a PD).
Our plan had actually been to make an ascent of Pigne d’Arolla, from and back to the Vignettes hut as our first ‘acclimatisation’ foray, hopefully to be followed by an ascent of l’Eveque, also from the Vignettes hut. Sadly this wasn’t to be as the weather didn’t want to play ball and we had several days of storms, snow and general mank meaning we abandoned the idea of heading up l’Eveque. (We also later abandoned our plans of heading up Mont Blanc du Cheilon from the Dix hut too owing to a combination of bad weather days and me falling ill on the last [irritatingly clear] day).
After ‘tagging the top’ via the Facile route, Alex and I headed straight back down with a brief stop back at the hut to retrieve the kit we had stashed behind and to have a drink of tea.
The route up itself is pretty unremarkable, being as it is a simple snow plod and a short section of moraine path, with only a few obvious crevassed sections to negotiate. The views however, are stunning. The views on the approach are fabulous but from the summit the panorama truly is breathtaking, with the Matterhorn visible in one direction, Mont Blanc in another, and lots more in between.
Alpine climbing is a wonderfully varied experience – from the hustle and bustle of Chamonix or Zermatt with their expensive shops and even more expensive uplift options (cable cars, trains etc), to quiet secluded village bases such as Arolla. Where you base yourself has a huge impact on your experience in the mountains, a place like Arolla granting you the very basic essence of it all – the mountains themselves all around you, with no flashy shops or expensive bars to distract you from what it’s all about. I liked it, lots, although I do still hate long hut walk-ins…
*Check out Alex’s blog: Glencoe Mountaineer.
