Its been a cold cold January so far, me and Owen decided to test out our new 4 season sleeping bags by sleeping in the mountain shelter at Llyn Y Fan Fach. The spec on the bag says that as long as you sleep in the foetal position, at -2, there is only a small risk of hypothermia. So we decided to take firewood and whisky with us to help with the cold. Carrying the firewood and our rucksacks up to the shelter was the hardest thing ive done for ages, the wood weighed a tonne!
When we got to the shelter the top of the ridge was hidden under cloud and the lake was half frozen. We dumped our gear and went for a walk, Owen found a sheeps skull which he slid out over the ice on the lake, it looked weird just sitting there on the waters surface.
I got back to the shelter and stood in the corner, facing the wall, Owen came in laughing, immediately understanding my 'Blair witch' joke.
We went to walk up the ridge but the windchill was fiercely cold, our faces were numb and since the top was covered in cloud anyway, we just retreated back to the shelter. We shut the wind out and wedged the door closed. There's no window there so we lighted some candles so we could see what we were doing. We played a couple of games of 'pass the pig' and cards and cracked open the Talisker. Time drifted by, and so did the whisky, we had drunk just over half the bottle and i checked my watch. 17:50!!!! Not even 6pm!! we had a serious lack of whisky panic and passed the time trying to get the pitiful fire going and toasting so garlic bread. The fire was rubbish all night, except for a period of about 10 minutes when we could feel the warmth of it on our faces (which were only 2 ft away from the flames). We cooked up some chili and rice on the stove, the hot chili did warm us up a little.
Later on when we were lying there listening to the wind, we both heard noises and looked at each other. It sounded to both of us like childrens voices which spooked us out a bit, we put it down to the wind rattling the tin roof.
Owen brought some curly wurlys which we crunched, it was like they had just been taken out of the freezer. We crashed out at 10pm, the sleeping bags held up pretty well considering how cold the concrete floor was. I didnt sleep very well, i heard the 'childrens voices' again in the night but Owen slept through it.
When we woke in the morning the sky had cleared and it was cool to sit on the edge of the lake watching the reflection of the full moon.
I was back in the real world doing the weekly shop in Lidl's by 10:30 on Sunday morning. I felt like i had been in the wild for a week. My back and neck have been giving me grief ever since.
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