There have been some beautiful sunrises at The Cottage this week!

I’ve also had a varied lot of work as well, including a couple of climbing wall trips, a walk through Menai Bridge and some maintenance work at the sailing club at Llyn Brenig.

But today (Sunday 30th Nov), I’ve been out working on a Mountain Training course entitled ‘Hill Skill’, which is designed as an introduction course to hill walking.

The photos don’t show it, but it was incredibly wind today! After learning about how to source and read the weather forecast, we looked at what gear we needed to safely go out, then set out up onto the lower Carneddau peaks.

We were in a rain shadow of the strong south westerly winds, which meant that while the bigger peaks were wet, we only had a bit of drizzle to contend with between some sunny spells (which was lucky as I had to lend my waterproof to someone who’d forgotten theirs!)

Lots of good mountain chat, fine views and an enthusiastic group of young hill walkers made for an excellent day of teaching and learning.

With the winds moving the clouds about so fast, there was plenty of opportunity to look for signs, symbols and characters up in the clouds!

But also down on the floor there was plenty to see as well if you looked closely enough, including purple beetles!

With some hilarity, we got ourselves into the emergency shelter tent in ‘real’ conditions, having had a practice the week before in the classroom (much easier!).

Once inside, it was a real haven and demonstrated well the necessity to be able to get some shelter should it be required on the hill.

On the way back, the drizzle rain seemed to be all around us, but not reaching us, so we were able to enjoy some good rainbows while navigating between features back to the bus, via the summit of Moel Faban.