Scouts or Parents - E-mail your comments and/or version of events for the walking weekend to Marplescouts@yahoo.co.uk |
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GROUP 1 LEADER: PIE DAWSON ASST. LEADER: TOMMY TOGS SCOUTS: DAVID WILLIAMS JOHN WILLIAMS RICK SANCHEZ ANDY THORPE We set off from the car park first, and began our ascent up to and around Glyder Fach in Snowdonia. Our group waltzed easily up the "Motorway" path, before almost taking a wrong turning - Pie proving to be useful for at least once today. Following that we waited at the first checkpoint - a lake about a third of the way up the mountain - for the next group. When they came, we set off. They would, in turn, wait for the last group, and therefore we knew that we were all safe and well. We continued our climb, moving aside for fell runners, and pointing out illegal campers on our way. The next checkpoint was to be a "Cantilever" rock, where we would have lunch. I can't explain exactly what a cantilever rock is because we never even saw it. With the mist and heavy rain, our group walked straight past it without noticing, and thus, the leaders had no lunch - Steev Spreck being the one holding their sandwiches. The main problems were that the paths were not marked out very well, so although you'd see a cairn one minute, there would be none to follow the next. This also proved to be the stumbling block of our team. The mist ground visibility down to about fifteen metres, and what with Pie being half blind anyway, we ended up walking down the wrong side of the mountain - moving further away from our destination. We (The leaders) knew we were heading the wrong direction, but continued to descend into the valley, in the hope that we could capitalise on our mistake by walking around a further ridge. In reality, we had walked off the smaller maps, and could only guess where we were on the larger OS map. We headed downwards further, across a dodgy (and extremely steep drop if you fell) path, until we were fenced in by farmers fields. This could not stop us however. After walking all this way we were not about to turn around and walk all the way back up. Instead we climbed some rocks and soon ended up in a small muddy patch with glass bottles strewn across the floor. We thought this was rather odd, but nothing could have prepared us for the grunts that we started to hear. Turning around after encouraging the slower members of the team, we saw a huge great pig, heading straight for us. We looked at each other as time stood still, before darting back from where we'd come from, and diverting our route to the road. When we eventually reached the road, and worked out where we were, we found out that the road we were on was running parallel to the one where we had parked the mini-bus, and that they never met. With time already ran out for our deadline, and with a three hour, four or five mile trip over a mountain infront of us, we decided to make use of Pie's wallet, and get a taxi back home. Al's Taxi service was soon escorting us back to the car park - some 22 miles by road. We got him to stop 30 yards short, to make it look like we had walked home, and started to think of possible excuses for lateness, but as it turned out we were the first group back. We were aided in our wait for the other groups by hot chocolate and a shelter from the rain, which was still pelting it down. We had walked six hours and the scouts couldn't wait to get |
Scouts or Parents - E-mail your comments and/or version of events for the walking weekend to Marplescouts@yahoo.co.uk |