Across the Dragon's Back - Prologue

The traverse of the Welsh two-thousanders was a long standing ambition for me and I knew that the trip would bring pain as well as pleasure. I own to a significant masochistical streak which indeed I see as quite essential to any hill walker. Why else struggle up Munros in thick mist and pouring rain? Saner persons immune to this form of lunacy will answer 'why indeed?'.
I can think back quite clearly to my very first mountain climb at the age of thirteen. I remember the hours of thought and planning that went into selecting a route which we considered neither too easy nor too difficult, the Snowdon Ranger. I remember the agonizing pain in the legs of that first ever ascent. I remember meeting six mistresses from my school near the top and being impressed that they had come up by the supposedly difficult pyg track. I remember the breathtaking panorama on that eastern side of the mountain and vowing to return and come up that way myself sometime. Despite the physical torment to legs which had never faced anything of the sort before and feet inappropriately clad in sandals this day was the beginning of a lifelong love affair with the mountains and indeed with Snowdon itself which, after climbing all the Munros, and coming to live in the Lake District remains firmly in my list of top ten British mountains. This is not just because it was my first, for despite the railway, the crowds and the erosion, I can think of no other peak with such a wonderful structure of ridges which can offer delight to the schoolgirl struggling to her first summit and to the expert traversing Crib Goch with ice axe and crampons. It will be sad indeed if Snowdon does not offer me a moment of delight as it has done so many times before.
We went to Wales to do a bit of reconnoitring for the backpack. I wanted to be sure that I could obtain fuel and the new maps which I needed at certain key places such as Hay-on- Wye, Llandrindod Wells and Machynllyth. The result of the survey was encouraging. The only negative piece of information which we acquired related to the Arans. We went up to Bwlch y Groes seeing this as a potential meeting point. Here we discovered that there is no access to the Aran ridge from this col. Contemplating this problem I wrote: 'This traverse from Arans to Berwyns is crucial to my itinerary and I have every intention of completing it if humanly possible. However the possibility of being turned back on this section by hostile fence or farmer will cast a certain shadow over the journey until Bwlch y Groes is reached".
On the evening before we set off I wrote down my final thoughts about the venture: 'A lot of people now know about my trip although I was hesitant about publicising it in advance. I shall lose face if the walk is not completed! However I do not see this as a major factor because I am not particularly susceptible to other people's opinion and more likely to be influenced by the knowledge that I am prone to intense regret and self-recrimination if I back out of such an enterprise even if it is for a good reason. The most obvious example is the ascent of Kilimanjaro on which I turned back because of the sudden onset of mountain sickness, a defeat which galls me to this day although I accept that I probably did the right thing. Rowland says that I should psychologically prepare myself for failure but I strongly disagree. It is only too obvious that it will be easy to drop out anywhere. It is not like setting out to cross the Antarctic! Hence I feel that it is important to prepare myself psychologically to continue even if the going gets a bit rough. There will be plenty of time to adjust to failure if and when it happens!
'The other reason for publicising the walk might be to seek some form of sponsorship but nothing would please me more than to be able to publicise the fact that I am NOT seeking sponsorship. The whole idea of sponsored walks is one which I find highly distasteful. Why should I expect anybody to subscribe to a charity of my choice because I am doing a walk for my own enjoyment? Far worse is the idea that I might expect them to do so because I am doing a walk which I do not really want to do. There are enough feet eroding our hills for pleasure without adding those who have come there to torture themselves in aid of some charity. The most logical thing which I could do would be to be sponsored for every day I DON'T climb a hill and to give the money to a charity which is trying to preserve the wild areas of Britain!
'So we are due to leave for Wales tomorrow. The outlook is for winds and rain next week. I was thinking this morning of John Betjeman's intellectual hikers who set out to 'walk round Winchester for weeks' but as darkness falls conclude that they 'may as well go home by bus'. Will my ambitions end the same way I wonder? As the walk draws nearer so the inner tension about it increases but it has gone too far to back out of it now. 'He who rides a tiger....' or in my case 'she who rides a dragon....', dare not, or will not, dismount!'
first day
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