Tag: Mountain

Transylvania Trek 1: Moeciu to Cheile Gradistei

Sat in my tent, I was thinking about the reason why I was with a group of 25 strangers, in another country, about to set of on some of the most physically demanding walks that I’ve ever had to do.

I reminded myself of the reasons. I wanted to prove to myself that I’m strong enough. Mentally and physically I can sometimes struggle. I have endometriosis and the side effects from different types of medication can be difficult. I have lots of migraines and often feel shattered. I also have my own experiences of anxiety and depression. Despite this, I wanted to prove that my sense of adventure hadn’t been overshadowed by cautiousness and fears. I want to prove that I am enough and I wanted to prove to myself that I could manage a challenge this big. That being said, it was one thing booking the trip in a moment of bravado and another thing entirely actually being in a tent in Braşov, getting ready to start an unknown adventure…..

It was the first day of my Transylvania trek. Technically, this was day 2 of the trip but our first day had been a whirl of travel, so this was our first day of actual hiking. This was supposed to be a ‘starter day’, designed to help to break us in gently  and help us to test our pace and stamina. I thought that the trek leaders might go slightly easier on us for this one…. forget that – it was tough!!

We were starting our walk at Moeciu and walking through to the ski resort of Cheile Gradistei. It was a beautiful start to the trip. Moeciu was a sunny, pleasant 14km walk through meadows with stunning mountain views as far as the eye could see. The weather was beautifully hot and we were soon taking off layers to accommodate the heat. That’s not to say it wasn’t difficult – we were all soon feeling the exertion, huffing and puffing our way up the hill. It was also clear that the pace of the walls would be somewhat quicker than I had been used to in my training. It was at this point that I discovered that I am more of a plodder than a walker!

The sound of cow-bells were never far away as we walked through the meadows, creating an unearthly soundtrack to our footsteps.

Animals seemed to be the theme of the trip, with two dogs joining us for the walk. Whilst Moft (a scraggy but excitable companion) was completely up for the 5 hour trek, his friend Charlie didn’t seem to be quite as interested, leaving us to continue on without him for the last half of the walk. Having a dog in tow was amazing for morale. Just as everyone was starting to flag, along would come Moft and our spirts were raised again and again. Although he was quite a dirty dog, everyone soon forgot the warnings of ‘don’t pet the animals’ and were quite happily stroking him and snapping pictures. There is something irresistible about a friendly dog, and he was very instagrammable too!

Some parts of the walk were fairly comfortable, however elements of the trek were really quite hard, particularly the steep climb before lunch and the twisting paths through the meadow. The path towards our lunch spot looked never-ending and it was certainly a test of determination to keep plodding upwards. Particularly when a couple of walkers going down the hill, who were much older than me, seemed to bounce down with buckets of energy, leaving me panting for breath and struggling ever upwards. At the highest point of this trek, we reached 1187m, stopping at the top to sit for a well earned rest in a circle of little tree-stump seats. It was a really positive feeling to look around my fellow walkers and know that everyone was feeling the same sense of achievement.

The way back was peppered with more beautiful sights, particularly around the hilltop retreat marked with cairns and chair swings. Even though we were all pretty tired, we still managed a race to the swings, relishing in the chance to sit down and look out across the beautiful views over the mountain range.

Our descent took us down through a steep meadow where there was no flat foothold to be found.  The entire section was carried out with angled ankles and uneven steps, making us all watch our footing a little more closely. I found myself glad of the strong ankle support in my boots, without which I’m sure that I would have ended up with an injury. The final part of the descent was down the steepest hill I think that I have ever seen. It reminded me of cheese rolling competitions and I certainly felt like I was taking part in a great cheese chase as I made my way cautiously down the embankment. Moft had no problem navigating the terrain and was waiting for the group down at the bottom, happily wagging his tail and acting like the 14k over hilly terrain was no big deal.

Heading down the hill to the ski resort was a welcome relief – particularly as people were bursting for the facilities (me included). We plonked ourselves down in one of the outdoor seating areas for the restaurant and rewarded ourselves with drinks – I don’t think that Sprite has ever tasted so good!

That first day taught me a lot about walking and about myself. I learned that I can talk to complete strangers for five hours without feeling stressed or anxious. I think that as we were talking about the reasons we were undertaking the trek and our personal circumstances, we had breezed past the small talk that I usually find so difficult. Give me an in-depth conversation and I’m super comfortable, talk to me about the weather or who won a recent TV show and I’m out. However, the whole group got to know each other so quickly and it was great to have such meaningful conversation to get us through the long walk.

I’d also forgotten the impact of sleeping in a tent. Waking up to natural light helped to reset my body clock and I found that I was more awake and ready to go much earlier in the morning (which is a bit of a miracle for me – usually my brain doesn’t wake up until later in the day). The strangest part of the day was settling down into my sleeping bag in the tent alone. Listening to the night settle in outside, I was able to rest my head and start to think about preparing myself for day 2 of the trek.

 For the full trip posts, visit the links below:

Transylvania Trek 1: Moeciu to Cheile Gradistei

Transylvania Trek 2: Bucegi Massif

Transylvania Trek 3: Castle Bran and Piatra Craiului Mountains

Transylvania Trek 4: Postavarul Massif, Tampa Mountains and Braşov

 

Snowdon, UK

So in the quest to keep up my training for the upcoming trek in Transylvania to raise money for Mind, my travel blogging has been suffering a little. I’m finding that most weekends I’m out walking which leaves little time for writing and organising photos. Hopefully all should be back to normal after the trip and I’m sure that I’ll have lots of new experiences to share!

In the last couple of weeks I’ve been out to explore Upper Derwent in the UK Peak District a number of times (blog post to follow) and eventfully, I also climbed Snowdon.

Snowdon is the highest mountain in England and Wales. It’s also a beast of a walk. I knew that I was in for a rough day when it took us longer than planned to get parked up. After a two hour drive, I was ready to get walking, but the busy parking situation meant that 45 minutes later we were still looking for somewhere to park. Once we’d left the car behind, we then had to battle the unhelpful and unfriendly shop workers to purchase a map of the routes up Snowdon. I get that tourists are a pain but if you sell maps, you have to expect that people are going to ask you for the maps, right?!

By the time that we hit the Llanberis path, I was not in the greatest of moods and that was about to get worse. The path itself isn’t too bad: clearly marked and fairly comfortable underfoot, however as the path started to level off, the weather took a turn for the worse and started to rain. Already fairly stroppy, I was highly unimpressed at getting soaked and took shelter in the cafe about half way up. Two ladies heading down in the opposite direction asked about the time to the bottom and their expressions reflected my feelings –  they had another hour and a half to descend and I had another two hours to climb up. None of us were happy!

Setting off again, my hood was pulled tight and I was cold and pretty soaked. To make it worse, as we crossed under the train bridge, a thick fog draped over the mountain and it was impossible to see more than a couple of feet ahead. Being quite honest, this completely panicked me. I am not great with heights or edges and the thought that there was a very steep and very narrow edge close by that I couldn’t see or locate was terrifying. I spent the rest of the assent in a state of panic, struggling to control my breathing and stopping every couple of minutes to try and calm myself down. Groups came and went and every time another group disappeared into the fog, I was convinced that we would either end up lost, wandering a mountain alone or falling off an unseen edge. Trying to gain some motivation, we asked a couple of people how far it was to the summit. A mixture of responses, including: “10 minutes“, “about 40 minutes” and “another hour, but it’s horrible up there” didn’t make me feel much better. At one point, we were seriously considering turning around and going back down. The thought of getting on the train to come back down the mountain was the only thing pushing me to the top. That and the thought of the pizza I was going to demolish when I arrived home.

Upon reaching the top, there was no celebration or taking of photos. For one, it was far too wet to risk taking out my phone to snap a shot or two and secondly, the photos would have showed fog and not much else. By that point, I just wanted to get somewhere warm and dry. I didn’t care that we had just scaled the highest mountain in England and Wales; I just wanted to go home. Heading to the visitor’s centre, hair plastered to the side of my face and dripping, I closely resembled a drowned rat.

Alas, the plan to return down the mountain via train was not to be. There were no spaces on the train (of course not; the weather was terrible, no one in their right mind would have chosen to walk over taking the train) and so, after spending far longer than necessary huddled over the hand dryer in the toilets, we set off on our descent.

As soon as we headed out in to the fog again, I could feel the panic trying to take hold. Then came my saviour. A guy in front of us, hiking with his two young children (who simultaneously made me feel ashamed for panicking and reassured that if they could do it, so could I) was talking about how many times he’d done Snowdon, his approach to the different routes and how to stay safe in the mountains. So we did what any logical people would do; we stuck close to him down the mountain, pretty much latching onto his group until we reached a lower point on the path. They didn’t know it, but that man and his children were my saviours that day!

In total, it took us about 5-6 hours to go up and down Snowdon, however we later worked out that it took us around 4 hours up and only an hour and a half to come back down: a sign of how desperate I was to get back to the car and the warm heaters!

Looking back, I’m glad I did it. Taking on the challenge in the bad weather has given me a chance to realise how quickly the weather can change in the mountains and how well prepared you need to be. It also gave me some practice with heights and edges, regardless of how much I wanted to be on lower ground. That being said, it wasn’t a walk that I enjoyed. So it’s one to add to the tick list, but I think that I’ll leave Snowdon to more enthusiastic walkers next time!

 

Half Dome: Subdome

You can read part one and part two of our trip up half dome here:

Part one

Part two

The Sub-dome was in sight! After a gruelling but beautiful hike past Vernal Falls, Nevada Falls and through Little Yosemite Valley, we reached a sign to say that Half Dome was a mere 2 miles away.

By this point, I was done in. I was struggling to breath (asthma and altitude do not go hand in hand) my voice had gone almost completely and I was shattered. I also knew that we still had a roughly 4-5 hour hike back down to the valley. I am a very stubborn person and I refused to turn back until I made the Sub-dome. By this point, I’d accepted that there was no way I was going to make it to the top of Half Dome. Physically, I was too knackered to pull myself up those cables, and I’m not sure if I’d have been entirely ok with the height, but I was determined to meet my goal of reaching the Sub-dome.

After some challengingly steep switchbacks through the forest, we passed through the section of the trail where a permit was required and broke above the tree line.

Being that high up, and that close to the Sub-dome was incredible. Despite feeling broken, it was probably one of the biggest highs of my life!

The views were incredible. Snow-topped mountains in the distance, blue skies and harsh granite surrounded us from all angles. It felt like we were in the sky and Wandering Beeb was in his element, snapping pictures of anything and everything! We had achieved our goal and it felt amazing to have been successful at something so physical.

After spending some time taking in the views (and catching our breath), we decide to retrace our steps and head back down the trail. By the time we hit the bottom of the waterfalls, it was almost dark. Torches on, we continued to navigate our way down. There were few people left on the trail and as it got darker, we realised that we must have take a wrong turn somewhere. We could see the lights from the toilet block across the river but there was no way we could see of reaching them. The path had gotten narrower and we were both starting to feel panicky. Afterwards, we admitted to really understanding the dangers of the park at this point, given that we were in bear territory and unsure of where we were.

Trying to remain calm, we hiked back up the path, eventually realising that we had taken a hidden fork in the trail and had headed down a bridal path instead of the main trail. It was such a relief to find the right path and head down past the toilets and water fountains, knowing that we would soon by back in the Valley, surrounded by people rather than bears and mountain lions.

We eventually arrived back in the valley at about 10pm. We were hungry, knackered and sore, and still had a 45 minute drive back to Wawona to our tent. It didn’t matter. We’d reached the Sub-dome, we’d pushed ourselves to the limit and we’d almost touched the sky.

Wash your spirit clean

– John Muir

Half Dome: Nevada Falls and Little Yosemite Valley

You can read part one of our trip up half dome here.

The two trails up Half Dome split at the top of Vernal Falls. The Mist trail takes a short detour to the top of Nevada Falls (adding a little distance on to the journey), whereas the John Muir trail is a more direct route. We never want to miss anything (especially as it takes so much effort to climb Half Dome!) so each time we have taken the Mist Trail.

It’s about a 2 mile hike from Vernal Falls to Nevada Falls, characterised by switchbacks and some rocky pathways through a forest area. The sunlight weaving through the trees and the light reflecting off the water at the bottom of Vernal Falls created beautiful little rainbows in the mist.

The top of Nevada Falls is a beautiful place to sit and chill, having gained an extra 1000ft above Vernal Falls, taking us to a total height of 6000ft above sea level. On our first trip, this was as far as we got. We’d set off far too late in the day and didn’t really want to hike in the dark, so we chose to stop at Nevada Falls, spend some time exploring and then headed back down the trail.

One of my best memories of that particular trip was taking off our shoes and socks and paddling in the calm water of the Merced River before the waterfall. It was a perfect way to refresh ourselves after the steep climb!

Our subsequent trips have seen us hiking much further up the trail. Leaving Nevada Falls behind, Little Yosemite Valley is a much flatter part of the hike. Surrounded by trees, it offers some welcome shade from the blistering heat. I loved the surroundings here; the sounds of the forest and the smell of the trees. The scent was almost overwhelming and it makes me think of adventure every time I smell it. This was a stunning walk with glimpses of Half Dome through the trees.

Little Yosemite Campground was a big milestone for me – I hadn’t expected to make it that far!! If I was to do the trail again, I would definitely consider camping at this campground to acclimatise to the altitude and rest up before attempting the climb to the top of Half Dome.

The Mountains are calling and I must go

– John Muir