First awesome mountain day

I've been training for mountain walking for a few months now so on Saturday with a clear day forecast and the mountain clear of ice it was time to head off onto the mountains that I have looked at from the lake.  The Llwybr Crib yr Aran (Aran Ridge Path) was the route for the day and I set off at 8:30 to make the most of the day.  The route starts at Pont-y-Pandy, Llanuwychllyn with an easy road and grassy ascent.

It's not long before the views open out, to the north across Llyn Tegid and to the west over to Arenig Fawr and south-west to Cadair Idris. In the first photo below you can just make out the sun shining on Moel Emoel and in the second image a view up towards the first summit of the day, Aran Benllyn (885m).

I got to the summit of Aran Benllyn just before 10, it's not a difficult climb for fit terrier and the views were excellent, the first is looking north with Llyn Tegid in view and the Clwyds visible in the distance (Moel Fammau to the right and Penycloddiau just visible too).  The second picture below shows the view south along the ridge towards Aran Fawddwy which is about 2.5 km distant.

The ridge walking was great with incredible views in every direction as you can see from 

the photos, there was even some snow for me to play in (only a few patches though).

Just before 12 I got to the top of Aran Fawddwy, this involved a bit of scrambling for me over the rocky bits but I had practiced this with my human so I just loved it.  Although it was very windy at the summit (905m) it wasn't very cold so I didn't need my jacket!  The photos show the views I had from the summit, you can tell it was windy as my normally dapper appearance is looking a bit windswept.

  

 

I had a nice easy descent from the mountain, heading back north and taking in an extra summit, Erw y Ddafed ddu (872 m) on the way back (picture below) with lots of stops for taking in the view and scampering around in the snow patches. By the time I got back to the 

car-park at 3pm I had had the best ever day out as my first proper mountain walk and had covered 17.2 km with about 945 metres of ascent in total.  Was I tired ?   No but I think my human was!

Wags and woofs , Dexter the mountain terrier. 

Homework!

Now I have moved to the Intermediate Agility class I have to do even more homework, some of my little human friends don't like homework but mine is great fun. I have jumps and a tunnel to practice my agility.

 This is a really great way to run around and get my humans tired and once I've worn them out I can have a snooze.  Today was quite warm and sunny so it was very pleasant to sleep outside for a while.

Woofs and wags, spring is nearly here,

Dexter.

Happy Birthday me

Agility and mountains.

I've travelled around a bit over the last couple of weeks and finished my first lot of agility training.  Last week I was in Wales so I spent a long time at Tal-y-bont beach with my humans, it was a great place for a young terrier to run around and I'm spending lots of time fetching balls that my humans throw for me.  I had a look at a couple of the mountains I'll be climbing later in the year, the first picture shows Aran Fawddwy and Aran Benllyn looking great with light covering of snow.  The second picture shows Moel Siabod in the evening sunlight.

On Sunday 15th I had a long walk in the forest and met my first horse, Timothy was a very calm horse and I wasn't in the least bit frightened even though he was much,much taller than me.

As I said I've finished one round of agility training, I love it and want to race around fast but I know that I have to stop at certain points while I'm training so I'm usually pretty good - except when my humans get confused.  They are going to have to speed up on the training otherwise they won't manage to keep up with me.  My friend Darwin will be at the next training classes so that's another thing to look forward to. I've added some photographs showing some of the things I do.

Tomorrow is a big day, 16th February is my birthday and I am one year old!  Happy Birthday to me! 

Wags and woofs, Dexter.

  

Winter Weekends

Hi folks,

I'm just going to post a few photographs to show you where I've been over the last couple of weekends.  I'm still doing agility training so that now involves a tunnel, jumps, an 'A' frame and a see-saw.  I really enjoy even when my humans confuse me with the wrong commands, I will just have to keep working on them .

Last weekend I went to a huge beach and was able to run around, splash and chase things that were blowing in the wind.  Wow it was so windy and there was lots of water to splash in although it was very, very cold.  Today I went to The Roaches in Staffordshire for a short walk and bagged another peak.  I tried a bit of bouldering, this was great fun as the rock is really grippy for climbing. As you can see from the photo I encountered snow 

again, there wasn't much on the ridge but there was quite a lot of ice.  It was an easy ascent to the top of the hill (The Roaches - 505 metres) with only 164 metres of climbing 

Hen Cloud (410m)

and great views from the ridge for the whole walk.  The whole walk from the roadside car park is only 5.4 km so it was an easy scamper for me.

The Roaches (windy)

The final photos show the views from the ridge over Staffordshire and even though it was an overcast day the exciting thing for me was that I could see the hills of North Wales to the west.

Wags and woofs,

Dexter.

Trad jazz

I am going to my first jazz gig at the weekend, watch this space and I'll tell you all about it....

A great night out at the Caledonia pub, live music and lots of people made a fuss of me.  I got home very late and then had to be at Agility Training by 9 o'clock the next morning.  I was very tired by the time I got home on Saturday morning but it was worth it.  

The agility is going well but I sometimes have problems with one of my humans who seems to get very confused, very easily.  But I'll keep working at training the humans.

Woofs and wags, Dexter.