Our first challenges were to find (a) Wales, (b) the village of Pen-y-Cae, and (c) the bunkhouse where we would be staying for the first two nights. Staff members, fortunately, were not working under assessed conditions here, and after a few hours including only one schoolboy error (choosing to use the A40 in the Friday afternoon rush hour), a single U-turn in the village and a few muttered curses about the size of the sign-writing, we had arrived.
The bunkhouse was well appointed with a large and well-equipped kitchen and dining room, artistic arrangements of vintage skis on the walls and even an executive jet (albeit one lacking wings and engines) on stand-by in the car park.
Saturday was spent on the mountain, blowing out the cobwebs that had built up since the training expedition in March, refreshing map skills in the open, and getting a sense of the physical environment. Two main points stood out. First, route-finding was obviously going to be a good deal harder, in places, than it had been on the practice expedition in the Cotswolds. Paths that were clear on maps were often much harder to spot on the ground, mainly because so much of the terrain is open access land, and walkers tend to spread out, rather than follow a single defined route. Accordingly the traces that they leave behind are less clear and often misleading. Secondly, the climbing was going to be a lot more demanding, particularly with full packs and in the heat of the day.
For their two-day assessed expedition, our two groups had planned different routes. The first day for the Green group (Paddy, Anand, James M, and James K), took them up Fan Brycheiniog from the Tafarn-y-Garreg pub (not open at 9am on a Sunday morning) on the A4067. This involves an initial painfully-steep climb from 200 to just over 450 metres, followed by a less steep, but relentless, and ultimately more exhausting, ascent over about three and half kilometres to the 802-metre summit. The route follows a ridge with precipitous slopes on the right-hand side and breath-taking views to the east.
The Red group, meanwhile (Finlay, Peter, Tim, Joe, Kit, and Billy), having set off from the telephone box in Cae’r-Lan at 9.35am, were still in the same general vicinity an hour and a half later! Progress was not assisted by a farmer who had fenced off the right of way, nor by the group’s unscheduled visit to the elevated hill farm of Fforch-orllwyn before descending to the valley once more to rejoin the planned route up the mountain.
Map and compass skills were essential here, and happily the Reds pulled themselves together at this point. There was no clear track at all, and they were dependent on map and compass skills to take a bearing from the map and follow it on the ground, which they did. This was a steady climb for about 5 kilometres over Cefn Mawr, rising from 200 to 500 metres, before the group turned south-east for the final stage of the route.
The Greens, meanwhile, after lunch at the summit of Fan Brycheiniog, were descending in the river valley to the west, on an unofficial path (strictly speaking, not a path at all!) following a county boundary. Here, the route was very unclear and making progress was hard, but ultimately successful, work.
The groups’ routes had been planned so that the final stage, to the camp site at Glyntawe, was the same for both. This fact elicited a competitive streak in the Greens, who clearly did not intend to be the second to arrive. The Reds, more chilled, took the relaxed view that dinner could wait and that an empty mountain is a pleasant place to be on a sunny afternoon.
Our camp site was in the valley at Glyntawe, adjacent to the Dan-yr-Ogof caves, with numerous pleasant features: llamas, ostriches, an informative display of Welsh rocks, a field entirely dedicated to holding caravan rallies... the list goes on. It also had, on this very still evening, one negative feature: midges, which arrived, thankfully, after tents had been erected, but which slightly curtailed enjoyment of the evening.
A 7am start had been planned for the second day, to enable us to be back in Oxford by 6.30pm. Packing, however, was impeded by the midges, the numbers of which made the task of rolling up tents, in particular, almost intolerable. This was certainly the low point of the expedition for everyone, and the only point at which tempers became slightly frayed.
Both of our D of E expeditions this year have been blessed with wonderful weather, and once we had left the campsite and the midges behind, there was another glorious sunny day to enjoy. The Red group followed the same route up Fan Brycheiniog that the Greens had taken the previous day, while the Reds followed a parallel route along the Beacons Way lower down the mountain. The routes intersected at the lake (Llyn y Fan Fawr) below the summit. Both groups then headed east towards their finish on the Trecastle road, enjoying a rest on the way at a pleasant spot beside a stream.
All ten students should be very proud of their achievement. They walked more than 30 kilometres, in challenging terrain and hot weather, over the course of the three days, for two of them carrying on their backs everything that they needed. The qualified mountain leaders who assisted us all commented favourably on the characters and abilities of our students. It was also noted that the routes that they had chosen were longer, and much harder, in terms of both route-finding and terrain, than is normal at the Bronze level, and that their route planning and map and compass skills were similarly far above the normal standard for this level.
It is immensely valuable for students, who generally lead increasingly protected lives, to be given the kind of freedom and independence that the Duke of Edinburgh expeditions offer, and it is wonderfully rewarding to see them working together, coping with the difficulties, learning from their experiences and enjoying the liberty and the outdoor environment.
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