Somewhere, on some God foresaken rock in the Mediterranean, sometime in the early/mid eighties.
If I recall this is where we got abandoned for a few days with no food, because the Navy boys said the weather was too rough to send the boats out to get us.
There were guys who purposely tried to get hypothermia so they would send a helicopter to collect them as a medical emergency.
In the end we all got an impromptu ball game together and wallowed in the freezing mud. I had the time of my life. You never get closer to your buddies than when you’re all suffering through the same unbelievable shit, while firing high powered weaponry and blowing things up.
In March of ‘07 my father-in-law took me on a hike of the Rivals, three mountains that set side by side and visible from many points in North Wales.
We drove out from Mynytho in the early morning, packing light; coffee, sandwiches, and not much else. Upon arrival the weather was clear and sunny (rare in spring) and the morning chill just giving way under a steady sun.
The first couple of hours was idyllic, passing beautiful country views and the odd local livestock. The footing was easy, the rise was gradual to higher elevation, so gradual that it wasn’t even noticeable initially. That changed later.
Cresting the first mountains was very pleasant, the photo accompanying this post was taken near the top of the first mountain.
We continued down and up again, walking along an empty highway traveled by the odd truck or tractor, until we reached the foot of the next of the Rivals, it was a bit steep to say the least, particularly after about three hours of tramping about fields, meadows and narrow lane roads.
My wife’s dad had a bit of a grin as he looked me over. He is a man well into his sixties, and so far he had kept me going a pretty decent pace, he looked at me and headed up what was pretty close to a 45 degree incline, and looked to keep going that way to the top.
I followed. It did indeed keep on going up, the view got progressively more interesting.
A little further up I was in for a surprise: an iron age fort, built up on the top of the second mountain. I majored in Anthropology in college and the archeology classes were among my favorites, so this was a real treat.
sign explaining the fort
Entrance in a wall of the fort
We stopped and had lunch on a broad wall of piled stone and called our respective spouses to brag about just where we were calling from, enjoying the view from the peak.
View from the top of second mountain, piled rock is the fort
We descended quite a ways down to the base of the last of the rivals, and proceeded on upward to the last peak of the walk. Now we didn’t even have the odd path to follow, but tramped up a steep climb through waist deep heath, and over boulder and slippery shale that had to be navigated on hands and feet much of the time. Meanwhile my father-in-law, my senior citizen father-in-law is keeping a plodding steady pace that matched my own. I hate to admit it, but I was a little tired by this point, 4 hours into what he had described to me as ‘a walk’.
After another half hour of slow progress through obstacles I was surprised to see him easily breeze through, I was in sight of the peak, at the top of a particularly nasty stretch of loose shale. I ran ahead to get to the top of the last mountain peak on the walk, leaving my wife’s dad behind. and was rewarded with a reasonably impressive, if misty and overcast, view.
The view from the top of the last peak
I stayed long enough to knock off a few photos and headed down. Of course now I can’t find my erstwhile guide. I found out later he went around and back the 2 miles or so to the car park while I made my way to the peak and took my shots. At the time I was a little perturbed, and more than a little disoriented regarding directions. I meandered in a downward direction and found a road and followed it past an enormous antenna tower and the odd sheep, not twenty slightly nervous minutes later, I see a familiar car slowly making it’s way in my direction. He’d gotten bored waiting for me and decided to meet my part way, he assumed I’d figure it out eventually and make the road, which I did, though I wasn’t all that confident at the time.
