Advice for Pen y Fan mountain walk this weekend

[calibanzwei]

personally, i wear a baselayer and a thin windproof as i get hot quickly, my warm kit of which there is plenty lives in my pack in case its needed. a wise man once told me to start cold and it seems to work for me, a couple weeks ago in Germany i was at -10 in a helly hansen lifa and a windproof, the activity kept me warm, my pack would keep me warm if i had to repain static.

This - I'm exactly the same. Buff on the head and a thin pair of gloves if need be. When you stop and start to cool down, then you layer up.

 

[ged]

... What of course the internet and forums do is help to short cut a learning process in some ways. ... but internet 'knowlege' is not the same as experiential knowlege.

IMHO as long as your recognise the difference between the two then you're doing ok.

... if you said, just go for it and he got stuck or had to call mountain rescue, it would come back on this form ... So I think the advice needs to be sensible.

Good points. Somebody once said "Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring..."

In whatever walk of life, proper training will by design cover most of the things that need to be covered. We'll probably only do that here by accident. Training will usually include assessment of the trainee at various stages, perhaps with one-to-one corrective instruction where deficiencies are noted. Not so easy on an Internet forum.

For example the word 'fitness' didn't appear in this thread (until now) and I think anybody who plans to go up a mountain in the snow should be reasonably fit. I think we probably take that for granted if a guy says he's planning a jaunt in the Beacons in February, but perhaps it could have been mentioned sooner.

I'm not saying you can't go for a walk in the hills without first going on a course and getting a doctor's certificate. I'm just saying that we should all be aware of the limitations of the medium we're using.

 

[sasquatch]

But if you said, just go for it and he got stuck or had to call mountain rescue, it would come back on this form in a bad (even if incorrect) way. So I think the advice needs to be sensible.

I agree with that. I haven't noticed any bad advice on this thread yet. The fact that someone is asking for advice is a good thing, obviously anyone taking advice from an internet forum has to weigh up wether it's good or bad and go from there.

The great thing about this forum is you shouldn't get the types that attempt it in flip flops and shorts half way through the day. They would know their fitness and limitations so best of luck to them in my opinion, go for it. I could well be wrong here but I would have thought when it comes to climbing and similar it's the experienced people that tend to push boundaries and get into trouble more than someone that does the odd hill walk? Anyone know any statistics on that sort of thing?

 

[para106]

Ahhhhh - the 'fan dance'..............takes me back!!!

 

[andyxedos]

Well said everyone!

I know everyone always airs on the cautious side on the forum.... i remember going up sugarloaf when i was about 19 wearing a pair of nikes, a shirt and t-shirt and bottle of water with some mates and having plenty of dodgey looks off well kitted out walkers.... but we did it, enjoyed it and carried on... but i'd prefer not to be explaining to my missus about the nice trip in the yellow helicoptor
i'll be taking Harvestman up on his offer in a few weeks so may well start a thread in case anyone else wants to join and plan on doing sugarloaf in the next week or 2 if anyones interested?
cheers again!
andy

 

[nigeltm]

If you're up there this weekend it may be a bit crowded around the Llangenny area. South Wales Search and Rescue Association (mainly the 4 Mountain Rescue teams & South and Rescue Dogs Association) are running a joint exercise out of the Golden Grove campsite. Not sure exactly where it'll be but there will be steep ground search and recovery exercises as well as some river bank search exercises throughout the day. Hopefully it'll be all done and dusted by 16:00 and I'll get home without finding out the result of the Wales/England match!