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On the Snow-Cifad Van.

Newyddion
Dyfynnu
Rhannu

On the Snow-Cifad Van. Along the Barrier. I A Field for Swansea Adventurers. F ROM the office roof one day this 1  week the adventurer caught a j glimpse of snow-covered heights I in the north. The sun shone out a. moment upon the white uplands, and then the vision was gone. But the mountains in every cold blast they sent over Swansea shouted an invitation to their solitudes. The winds that swept. tha streets stenfcoriously sang of the' shining fields that stretched silently to! dark horizons; of the uplifted sanc-l tuaries where they worship. The glimpse worked its will. The adven- turer thought of the mighty rock barrier beLow the great Van, of its s.now- filled precipices, of the torrents that leapt from crag to crag. His heirt; turned longingly to those vast spaces; on which man's foot was not frequent.1 He knew their milder summer joys; had seen the clouds gather and break, in August, upon their summits. The sun's revelation of their snow-dressed ridges filled him, with a yearning to leave the streets and to experience their sterner winter moods. Then heigho for tlle mountains! For a few hours lot us, my friends, deserve the wise reproof of friends. They said that the adventurer was mad, that it was cold enough, goodness knows, in Swansea, and what must it be like up there? However, mad or sane, 11.) masters, as tho adventurer may be he will try to tell you of a winter after- noon spent amongst the snows that lay thick upon the barrier guarding iaj. Foel. CErWrycli or Fan Foel' At tho little and windy station above Craig-y-Nos, a fine view may be ob- tained of Van fjlihirycli, which is in the Cray watershed—the mountain which breaks the clouds and scatters the rain j for the good of Swansea ratepayers. Van Gihirycli sits heavily upon the plain, and thi3 day it was a wondrous sight. The sun gleamed upon its snowy sides; it turned into dazzling purity its broad back. Across the top of another mountain, filling in the other side of the valley, one saw the barrier which leads to the Carmarthenshire giant. The head of Fan Foel was hidden in a cloud. The station-master at Craig-y-Nos shook his head when the adventurer spoke of an attack upon Gihirych. It was a long way. The evenings closed in quickly. He looked at the townsman, and then at the mountain—and shook I 'I ,-r, ins ueaa. was he, too, wondering whether madness was at his elbow P I For behold the slopes of Girhirych 'I seemed this winter day to be very steep. and the boots of the townsman spoke of streets; there was no naily clatter j under them. But whatever he thought, ,I lie pointed to the left, where was tbo II bariier, caid tho Foal just the mist sweeping over the sharp sum- mit. The barrier, and the Foel, then, s let it be, and might fate be kind. The way, for the first part of the journey, was through a mysterious, wood, and over a rough track that led straight through a ruined farmstead; I down the other side of the hill, I through a lane and fields, and a church- yard, until the high road to Trecastloi was gained. Then straight on to Tavarn-y-Garreg, where a Mr. Skeats presides, and provides for the traveller. Grassing the Tawe. I For the .sake of any adventurers i tempted to funow this narr?t?'e Pl'ae-I tically some fine January or February ?ay—and one hears of some other I Black Mountain tramps having had emulators—let what tOjlOW 1-e noted. Jf a little, innocent-looking boy hC met just, where the road divides to: I Trecastle and Clay, never heed him. If this Welsh cherub declares that the turbulent Tawe is fordable hereabouts, that are plenty o: river, ignore him and walk oil to the farmstead near.which the Tawo can bo comfortably crossed bv bridge. For Can you get 'cross by cere, ,sAi-P" said he; "yes, sure, there are plenty of stones in the river." What he meant was that one could have waded +ihT-ougli t!!•••• T stones were plentiful. tHcro were ugly gaps between, through which the vyaters swirled, and dismayed one. That little Welsh boy was responsible for half-a- mile of perilous scrambling along the river-edge until at 1a*>t, near the junc- tion of the Tawe with an anfery rivulet which takes a shorter course from !>n-y-Van~Fa\\r, there ¡\ab a chance. The rock barrier is not in sight at tir's point. Its ccniimwbonis a grar-s- coverd s lope, steep as Kilvey at > its worst. It may be six hundred feet high, or even 'more. Upon this day it was speckled with pockets, of snow and ice fi did not look hard to cUmb. But its conquest was breathless work. In the smooth boots of the town nearlv everv step was uncertain. The snow wa? frozen hard to tread it here meant a fall and a roll. And once start upon the rolling pastime, and it would take you iuto tho\"aUcx. I The rocks'that stood out black upon the brow of the accent appeared very far off to the scrambling, slipping, ad. venturer. The higher he got, the mor< distant they seemed to be [this is one of the mysteries of the mountains]. And the wind, gentle enough in the valley, commenced to be troublesome. It came in stormy gusts, laden with thrills which tingled the ears. The snow and ice were thicker on the upper slopes. The adventurer began to wonder if his friends were not right; if there were not something in the doubting Look of the station-master. The slope was scarred by many a tiny stream. But these ran under covers of ice. Where/one stream jumped the precipice which marked the top of the steep ascent, there was a spectacle worth all this climbing; a waterfall of thirty to forty feet, frozen over, with long icicles that glittered in the sun- light. <t The Barrier. And "lext the long, steady march over the shquider at tJie moun.in and an ever-wideuing prospect to the south anu west. hwan^a-wards gloomy cloudy iiung low, and lnxats filled tho valley. Across, over Cein Cul, was Gihirych, now iess impressive in appearance, but still a very line sight on which to rest the eyes. In the blue distance, there a faint su^gest.r.iu 01 uk- n'J;iI:" Ine way was steadily upward to where the snow lay thick, and the black un- covered rocks marked the sharp edge of the barrier. The, going grew heavier, the snow deeper. One was now above the two thousand feet level, and the air was keener and rarer. The sharp ascent to the rocks had heated one until the perspiration ran-how many of you in Swansea iiavc- pc.vj.pmn .I,) summer left !-but here, where one wa; upon the snow-field, walking now and then over frozen ponds, where ice rang under the feet, the wind was cruel in its coldness. The adventurer recalls, however, the odd sensation of walking out of this realm of gusts into an in- tense calm—caused no doubt by the peculiar configuration of the mountain it was as if one had escaped from the street into the cosy shelter of home. The barrier of the Van has been little written about. It is described in no guide-book one has seen and it is worth describing. It commences in an over- hanging three-hundred-feet-high preci- pice, doubtless a volcanic wall, above romantic Llyn-y-Fan Fach. It sur- rounds two sides of the lake, and runt out, less precipitously to the vast, rocky bluff that dominates the landscape oi Carmarthenshire. Then it falls sharply, only to rise again at the sides of tha Van, which juts out like a great cape to the north, Tile pret-uvi/-• ex.).«x.eo again on the Swansea Valley side, and run, above the big lake, sometimes sheer, and sometimes in terraces, for nearly two miles—at all points difficult to climb, at some a real trial, one would think, for the cragsman. M Above the Lake. It is along the edge of this barrier that the quickest journey lies to the top of the Foel how near the edge one can walk defends on the strength and direc- tion of the wind, which is never idle iu this region. On this day, it blew dead off the cliffs, and so one progressed al quickly as th j rook* .ki ,0; frozen ponds and the tricky snow- ?cover,&d hummocks a'lowrd. innards tha gleaming ,j¡j!1t: L, I, n;o:uttaiii top, which was LK.V, clear embarrassed by cloud, a sight to stir taic, pulse wildly. If the town-dweller who does not know the mountains could have viewed the scene here! If he could have seen the wide expanse of white moorland that stretched from the Vans many miles down the valleys of the Twrch and the Amman I lIe would understand | then why some of us have to break out from the ordered day and routine, and seek relief in these great spaces. It is impossible to write of the glory of the scene; it is impossible to inter- pret one's moods, to explain the exalta- tion which falls, a sacred mantle, over one. An artist friend has endeavoured to present pictorialiy, from some rough sugestions, what. the sharp sloping edge of the leeaer Van looked like when the sun touched it; one thinks he has well caught some of the grandeur of thii speetacle. At three o'clock—the time of depar- ture from Tavarn-y-Garreg being one o'clock—the adventurer stood above tho barrier at a spot where a full view of Llyn-y-Fan Fawr—the source of tho Tawe—could be obtained. Ice fringed its sullen-looking waters, which ar' popularly supposed to have no bottom There was still the last three hundred feet of tho'Foei to b„ couvu .i d a mile to go. But above rIle Llyn one encountered a wmd that whittled like a shrill syren, a wind that blanched the cheeks and hurt the eyes and ears; a wind that had solidity. The white summit gleamed like a fairy palace, but it as difficult to attain as fairyland. The adventurer stumbled into a drift; then he fell on ice. At the last ascent ,!ic round" that the going was over frozen, snow. A quarter-past three. The warning of Tavarn-y-Garreg had lwcu to return at five without fail. It is not good to be on the mountain in the half-light. The adventurer turned his back regrl"" fully upon the summit, leaving the fihot. ascent of the year to another. And what mattered it if the ctc&rnt f¡wili¡,.p I i ity a 1 •-»!i he e For at the Tavarn there was a roart&g tire, and ten-—»,:■ -nopei.^ -> sunds might havo envied. From tho valley one saw the Foel again with a night cap of cioud. It will be worth another attack before the winter snowa have cleared! J. D. w