XXV

INTO THE WILD

In the morning, we both overslept and I was shocked when Father carried me out from my bed and dropped me in the ‘laundry’, a slate-lined pond in front of the house with steps down to the water where a spring came out – the water source for the house. We no longer used it as a laundry, since we used the water to drink. The spring water was an icy shock, but less of a shock than his playful gesture and above all, the human contact with Father, who had not carried me since I was an infant…

Confused by such intimacy and playfulness, I helped Alan to pack up. Somehow, I had become accustomed to the fact that once we are no longer infants, parents do not touch their children. They send their children away to school to be chastised with corporal punishment. Strangers, teachers were hired to touch them with brutal strokes of the cane, lash or whip. Parents don’t touch their children – for fear that they become ‘soft’ or perhaps develop an Oedipus Complex? And here was Father actually carrying me outside to dunk me in icy water! It was not the icy water that shocked me but the warm grasp of his strong arms holding me.

The next time I remember touching him was some twenty-two years later, when I came to spend time with him as he died. I took his hand, huge but feeble by then. In those twenty-two years, there had been occasions, such as when I returned, hitchhiking, from many months in Iran and I knew he was excited that I was coming home. When I knocked on his study door, he must have been standing almost behind it, for it opened immediately – I would have embraced him as I had learned to do in the Middle East. I would have even settled for his hand – yet his hands were tightly clasped behind his back and his greeting was only a broad smile and “Hello”.

We were on our way again, our purpose blessed and confirmed, back up to the ancient track we had been following the day before. We were not stiff from the exercise of the day before, we had been walking all day every day for weeks already. The weather continued hot, dry and sunny. The landscape was changing as we went further into the younger geology of Snowdonia, into ever sharper crags. Far below, on our left, the Traeth Mawr estuary was flat as the sea, green with marshy fields. I had been devouring Tolkien, volume by volume, as Father reviewed first The Hobbit and then the three successive volumes of The Lord of the Rings and I imbued the cloud-robed crags to the right with goblins, elves and of course, my hero, Strider… I admired Gandalf as well, of course, but more as a father figure – and even Father’s beard was not long and white enough for that role.

Ahead and slightly to our right, the great sharp peak of Snowdon itself stood against the sky, the eastern side sharp and craggy, the western rounder, smoother. We even considered walking to the summit (yet again) but decided that we could not get distracted at this point but should press on with our objective. Besides, where could we safely store our packs while we made this diversion? The tree line in North Wales is naturally very low, higher than 200 metres above sea level there are almost no trees, probably because the earth is too shallow at that altitude. Perhaps the tree line was once higher, but when the forests were cut or burned, erosion washed out the earth and new trees could not take hold – much as the Dalmatian coast has been eroded since the woods were cut down to build Venice and its fleets. Homer wrote of Ithaca as a very green and wooded island but that was before the Venetians and goats arrived like locusts, denuding the island, leaving it defenceless against erosion. There are exceptions, such as some sheltered hanging valleys or some government highland plantings of conifers, but in general the mountains are treeless – making for spectacular views, quite unlike the mountains of north-east America, which are so heavily wooded that views are few and far between. The sharp peak of Snowdon, seen from the south, is pure rock and on that side is a sheer cliff that has been used for training for Everest mountaineers. The side flanks of the mountain give way to grass and heather that clothe the rugged slopes in softer forms. Trees only survive down near the bottoms of valleys.

We followed the ancient track over the foot of Cnicht, forded the headwaters of the Afon Dylif at a waterfall that can be seen as a splash of white for miles around… so once again there was a spectacular view down the hills to the coast and Cardigan Bay. Here the slopes were steep, but our track kept to the contours, so the going was easy enough. Then it dropped downhill into ancient natural woods of oak and beech, where we reached a farm track that turned into a single-lane road. Here we changed course from the way I had come on horseback, so as to avoid having to walk along two miles of main road, over the bridge at the Aberglaslyn Pass and up the west bank of the River Glaslyn. Instead, we stayed on the east bank that falls sheer into the water, except that an old, disused narrow-gauge slate railway had been carved into the rock. We could not have taken it with ponies, because it entailed going through a few fairly short tunnels. The roofs of these tunnels dripped constantly, despite the general drought of summer and naturally we went back into Tolkien and threatened each other that: “Gollum is living in here, in this dark, damp tunnel. He’ll soon jump out on us, thinking that we’re carrying his ‘Precious’ and tear at our flesh with his filthy claws and rotted teeth.” Only much later was I to learn that the mountains and old mines of Wales were indeed an original source of inspiration to the writer.

The ponies may have been terrified by passing buses belching diesel fumes but they certainly would have refused point blank to go into these dark tunnels, Gollum or no.

The pass is spectacular, for the river Glaslyn has carved out a gorge through the mountain and both sides are sheer rock, with a few brave conifers holding on here and there. Besides, we felt infinitely superior walking alone on our side of the river, while tourists in cars and buses were all on the road on the other side. In 1955, there were no rails (they had been salvaged for iron in the War), but today the line has been restored and opened as the Porthmadog-Caernarfon Welsh Highland Railway.

We walked through the tourist town of Beddgelert with its grey stone buildings, hotels and shops. Some time prior to the mid-nineteenth century, a legend was created to attract tourists. George Borrow recounts it in his book Wild Wales (1862). In the legend, Prince Llewelyn went out hunting, leaving his baby son in the custody of his faithful dog Gelert. Upon his return, he could not find the child and his dog’s muzzle was covered in blood. Mad with rage he killed the faithful hound, but then found his baby son safe and sound – and the corpse of the wolf that Gelert had killed to save him. The Prince buried his dog and you can visit its ‘grave’ – the ‘Grave of Gelert’. Apparently the name Gelert actually comes from St Gelert, a local saint who lived in the sixth century. Living in Wales myself, I felt superior to the tourists who came to ‘Ooh and aah’ at the magnificent scenery. So we just walked on through the little town without stopping, though Borrow himself said that the Aberglaslyn Pass (the gorge though which we had just walked) rivalled in beauty any such gorge in the Alps or Pyrenees.

We continued along the little disused railway (missing out an annoying loop just upriver from the town) and kept walking until we reached some more government forestation of small pines. On our left rose Moel Hebog at 782 metres and a little further orth was Moel yr Ogof, where there is a cave near the summit in which Owain Glyn Dwr is said to have hidden from the English troops – he had a reputation for disappearing magically whenever necessary and certainly was a survivor. It is known that he lived into his late fifties, no mean feat in those days for a guerrilla fighter, but we could not muster the strength or the enthusiasm to go and visit his cave. By then evening was coming on and we were sufficiently exhausted to call it a day, though with our late start (thanks to oversleeping after Father’s curry), we had only covered a dozen miles. Or perhaps our short legs were getting shorter.

So we pitched our little tent near the edge of a forestry project, but far from any habitation, on some poor highland grazing where the sheep were running wild, their owners’ marks dyed in their wool until next year’s sheering. We cooked up our nondescript fuel of food and collapsed with exhaustion.