Summer Hiking with Trespass

Last weekend Dr W and I headed out on a hiking adventure. We’ve been a bit lazy about it recently, but as the weather is improving we decided to get out no matter what because summer hiking is great fun!

We headed out just after 8am on the Sunday and headed towards Black Mountain in the Brecon Beacons. The hike we planned was around 12km in total and we weren’t expecting to take too long, perfect for a summer hike really.

When it came to packing spare kit, I packed my usual set of spare socks, laces and an extra base layer. Rain wasn’t forecast, but we packed waterproofs nonetheless. Mountain weather can be so changeable even when summer hiking. For the day I chose to wear some lighter trousers than I normally wear (I’m so used to hiking more in winter these days). These were my new Trespass Retold Hiking Trousers. Promising stretch for easy movement, including extra stretch at the knees. But also being quick drying in the rain with a comfy waist band. I was excited to try out some new kit!

We reached our destination just after 10am and started hiking shortly after. The start of the hike was fairly sheltered and it was quite warm. I had chosen to wear gaiters because of the previous few days heavy rain and I thought it may be a bit boggy. It’s quite a long flat-ish walk out on a potentially (wasn’t too bad on our adventure) very boggy moorland to the quite steep ascent. We met some people who were walking the path from South to North Wales, what an amazing thing to do?! We had a quick snack break with them and chatted to them about their adventure.

There was lots of bird song during the walk, it was great to get outside and we saw two red kites circling and enjoying the thermals! The eventual ascent was fairly tough as it’s quite steep, but it’s only a couple of hundred metres so it’s over fairly quick. The stretch in my Trespass trousers was useful for some very big steps towards the top of the ascent!

We then walked along the top (watch the steep edge on one side!) to the summit. We got views out to Pen Y Fan and The Dragon’s Backbone. (The last hike we went on in the Brecon Beacons). We are so lucky the weather held. Whilst I couldn’t road test the quick drying of my Trespass Retold trousers, they did keep me dry. So the wicking effect for hot hiking days definitely works! The trousers are also very comfy, the waistband didn’t dig in like other trousers do and they stretched enough when I needed it.

After summiting and stopping for some lunch in a shelter we headed back down to the car. Finishing around 2:30pm. Perfect for beating the traffic on the drive home and giving us some time to do stuff in the evening!