Moel y Llyn
Moel y Llyn isn’t the most exciting of hills. It is one of the nearest to our house, it does have a little lake on the top and it does have nice views too. You can even see our house from the top! I hadn’t been out in the hills since a little jaunt up Tryfan the week before my heart attack. So it seemed like the perfect place for my first venture back into the wilds of Wales. Better still, Moel y Llyn was the ideal place to go for a walk with Steve and Biddy who we hadn’t seen for ages.
Visits
I was supposed to be meeting Steve for a mountain bike ride back in June. I had a rather inconvenient heart attack two days before that! One of the first things I did when back on the ward after angioplasty was to make sure Steve knew not to come for a ride. We hadn’t seen him and Biddy for ages before that and therefore now hadn’t seen them for even longer.
Having made something of a recovery Steve and Biddy were coming to visit to see how I was. Rather than just pop in for coffee and cake I suggested a nice easy walk in the hills. Moel y Llyn would be a sensible option and I knew that Steve and Biddy would be happy going at my new slow pace if necessary. They’d also be sensible enough to look after me if that was needed!
Moel y Llyn
So, after coffee and cake we left Anna and Morgan and headed off for the short drive up into Artists Valley. It was a grey and windy day but it wasn’t actually raining. Cloud shrouded the hilltops and the ground was wet. The stream running through the valley tumbled over little waterfalls as we drove alongside it. We parked up and soon headed off further up the hill along nice wide, easy going fire-roads. Daisy (Steve and Biddy’s dog) was with us too, as was an very autumnal feel.
It wasn’t the most exciting of walks but it was ideal for chatting and catching up and was nice easy going for me as well. I didn’t take the defib with me as I thought that might be a little too paranoid, but Anna did make me put it in the car just in case!
We left the fire-roads after a while and headed up a steeper track where forestry felling operations had been taking place. This brought us out onto the top where we headed through a gate and out onto the open hilltop of Moel y Llyn. Things were a little steeper here but we soon made it to the hilltop cairn and trig point where the wind was blowing.
Lakeside Lunch
We stopped for lunch with limited shelter just above the lake.
We did get glimpses through the clouds down to Borth and Ynyslas so dispute the mist and murk it wasn’t completely devoid of views today. We then made our way back to the car via a slightly different route. As I said, nothing too strenuous, nothing too exciting but a nice little walk in the hills.
Back at the house there was more coffee and cake before Steve and Biddy headed off home. It was good to see them and as usual Steve and I were talking about getting out on the sea for a windsurf session. Steve hasn’t been out for years and I myself have been off the water for a few months now as well.
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Still more excercise than most people! Nice to catch up with friends too
I wanted to read about moel y llyn and your article came up. You could write for good, helping people find beautiful places to get out and explore. Instead you write like an exercise snob, this mere walk was beneath you, looking down your nose at it and therefore looking down your nose at anyone who may find this a challenging walk. I feel sorry for you, you are missing out on appreciating the world around you, too busy being negative and dismissive, someone who’s just had a heart attack should really be appreciating life a bit more!
I thought I said it was quite a nice little walk with comments such as “but a nice little walk in the hills” and “it does have a little lake on the top and it does have nice views too”. I also said things such as “Things were a little steeper here but we soon made it to the hilltop cairn and trig point where the wind was blowing” which suggested that it wasn’t a completely flat walk without any challenges.
However, I can only write from my perspective as this is afterall a ‘personal weblog’ and for me it was nice and easy despite recovering from a heart attack. The whole point of choosing this walk as the first walk in the hills after a debilitating heart attack was that it was on nice easy tracks without too much elevation gain and no challenges from a navigational point of view. That doesn’t mean I didn’t appreciate any of it – If anything I appreciated it more as it provided me with the perfect opportunity to ‘test my heart’ whilst still feeling as though I was in the hills. It might only have been a tiny little hill but for me that was what I needed on that day.
I doubt I’ll ever be out in the high mountains again as my heart won’t allow it but I am at least making the most of what I am allowed to do.
Al.