A Quality Mountain Day
As part of their training and their continuous professional development after qualification Mountain Leaders in the UK are required to complete and log a certain number of quality mountain days ("QMD") a year. What makes a QMD? Mountain Training who are responsible for ensuring that mountain leaders are properly qualified and experienced basically defines a QMD as a day in one of the mountainous areas of the UK that lasts at least 5 hours, takes in a top, includes some off path walking and includes elements of navigation skills.
So it was that me and my friend Dan set off from Capel Curig on 9 September 2023 aiming to bag a QMD on Moel Siabod following the route shown above. This blog gives a summary of the day and I will leave it to you to decide whether Mountain Training would consider it a QMD. This blog will also give you a flavour of what a day's guided walking with Open Gates might be like - except for the emergency rope work bit!
The first 2km of the route was on minor road and track. Navigation was therefore straightforward and we used this opportunity to identify flora and fauna and discuss their properties. We identified crustose lichen on a boulder and discussed how this lichen could be aged by measuring its diameter and counting 1 year for each mm.
We then spotted some fruticose lichen on a silver birch branch and identified how it stands up from the surface on which it is growing much like the beautifully called Devil's Matchstick, British Soldier and Pixie Cup lichens often found on in stone walls.
To complete the trilogy of lichen varieties we saw some foliose lichen so called because although it doesn't stand up from the surface its texture is rough like tiny leaves of paper.
For more information on lichen and its various manifestations check out this pictorial guide published by Imperial College, London.
Dan then pointed out to me a fruiticose lichen called Old Man's Beard apparently so called because when it is urinated on it turns purple and it was used to dye Caesar's clothing. We then discussed how the presence of Bracken indicates that the land used to be populated by Oak Forest because Bracken grows on good soil hence the saying "Where there is Bracken there is gold; where there is gorse there is silver; and where there is heather there is poverty."
On leaving the track Dan and I took it in turns to choose and keep secret a spot to navigate to using map and compass. The other would follow the map and then attempt to relocate us on the map at the correct spot. Because the conditions were clear there was no need and, in fact, it would have been bad practice to micro navigate. We used what is called green naving, principally using what can be seen on the ground to navigate with as little use of map and compass as possible. Dan took us to a ring contour and then I took us to a small pond. We each managed to relocate effectively.
Dan and I then saw the remnants of an old incline (a pully system on rails used to raise and lower heavy loads such a slate up and down a steep hill) and we discussed what life in the quarries would have looked like and how it impacted on the environment.
So far so good but now came the rope practice. All mountain leaders in the UK are required to be able to use ropes in an emergency to belay a group down a steep slope or small crag or to use a rope to support a nervous walker to walk down or up a steep slope. Dan and I identified a spot on the well known Daear Ddu ridge on the south of Siabod and first practise abseiling ourselves down a craggy slope using the South African abseil method. We then took it in turns to rope ourselves in using a boulder as an anchor and lower each other down. Ropes are used very rarely by mountain leaders because they shouldn't be planning routes that will require a rope, rather they should only be used in an emergency. It was reassuring to have this practice.
Dan was planning to wild camp on the summit of Moel Siabod but I had to get back to Sheffield for my daughter's birthday the next day. It was with a heavy heart that I left Dan after helping him put his tent up. We had spotted on the surface pressure charts that although the weather had been clement all day storms had been forecast in the early hours because of a cold front passing over. After a few hours Dan made the sensible decision and evacuated the hill as he could see storms were closing in.
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