Training for Switzerland in Wales
When Taido planned our Switzerland trip, he let us all know that it was going to be hard.
Really hard.
And he kept saying it.
Once someone texted that they had climbed up Pinnacle Mountain as a training hike, and he texted back:
Great. Now go back up two more times.
And he meant it.
He kept saying that whatever amount of elevation we were picturing, we would be doing more.
For our training hikes, we went to Wales.
We can reach Wales in less than an hour from Bristol, but then it’s a little further to get into the hills.
In May and June the days were so long that we could drive over to Wales, do a long hike and still drive home in the daylight.
And as the trip got closer, we started hiking in Wales every weekend, sometimes on Saturday and Sunday.
When I did a navigation course in Wales, we all camped out over there for the whole weekend. Taido and Simon did training hikes while I did my course.
A few days before we all went to Switzerland together, my sister and her son flew here to Bristol. Almost as soon as they had landed, we were off to Wales for a final training hike. We hit up a hike along a hill that’s called The Dragon’s Back.
It was foggy, but muggy, like a lot of our summer hikes had been. We hiked in the thickening fog and climbed up into total cloud cover. We couldn’t see anything. It’s a shame to do all that uphill work and not get the views from the top.
But on our way down, the clouds parted and we got to see the summer green fields below us.
The descent was long over several ridges, which make up the dragon’s back.
We were all saying we were tired by the time we could see the bottom.
Not as tired as you’re going to be in Switzerland, Taido said.
We made our way back to the car and down the road to the pub where we laughed around the table and hoped that maybe we would be ready for the Alps.
