Latest Adventure in the Brecon Beacons

So yesterday was the day!

I finally got back into the mountains that mean so much to me. I took my partner up the Sugar Loaf mountain just outside Abergavenny on the edge of the Black mountains. It was her first time up any form of British mountain and she loved it!

The day started off with a really promising weather forecast and as we started up the mountain the sun was out and it was promising to be a nice day.

As We got steadily higher up the mountain the weather started to change a little as the wind picked up. As we got to the top it started to spot with a bit of rain but not to much. As we climbed higher and got closer to the summit we decided we would take a slight detour and traverse around the rocks at the top and approach the summit from the North East instead of the south as that meant climbing up into the wind rather than climbing up the last few meters with the wind blowing against us. Thinking that Abby was inexperienced in this kind of weather I deemed it the safer option. As we crested the summit into the fairly strong winds we decided that to stay for to long was a bad idea so after the obligatory summit photos we descended to the base of the rocks just bellow the summit out of the wind to take some more photos and eat our lunch.

On the descent, once again because of the wind we decided to walk around the side of the summit and come down in the lee of it so we would be out of the wind on the steepest part of the descent and then walked off via the same southern spur we had gone up by.

All in all this was a very successful day for the 2 of us and it served to reinforce a few very important lessons:

1. Never go into the mountains with someone that doesn’t want to be there.
2. Be aware of the weather and, especially when on exposed summits, the wind as it only takes a moment to slip, be knocked off balance and fall.

This trip also served to allow me to try out one of my newest pieces of equipment a new 45ltr day pack. (reviews of this will be coming shortly after I have tried it out another couple of times) For now however I was very impressed and happy with it.

Cheers guys talk again soon.

Author: mattsmountaineering

I'm a Climber, mountaineer and adventurer. There are few things in my life that i truly care about, these are my family and friends, my dog and mountains, the most important, the best and the biggest in that order. View all posts by mattsmountaineering