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A snowy wander around the SE Back Mountains with the Bristol HF Walking group. Starting at Llanthony we made our way up onto the Offas Dyke path and then headed south to Hatterrall Hill then back along the other side of the valley.
The overnight snow and blue skies made this a very pleasant walk - especially as the top is often quite boggy - although you needed to be careful about walking on the "flat" snow as you could hear the ice cracking underneath.
The mud could not be avoided once down in the farm yard at Darren - a heavily churned up track with 4in deep liquid mud added some unexpected low-level excitement.
Due to a couple of slower walkers, the leader tried to shorten the route a bit - resulting in coming across a locked pedestrian gate on what the OS has as a public right of way (where the path should meet another behind just before the farm house at Noyaddllwyd). I spotted that the path went behind the farmhouse and looking around found a padlocked gate blocking our route, This stopped most of us wandering into the courtyard. The walk leader had already gone ahead which roused a couple of barking dogs and then the owner - luckily a reasonably friendly conversation followed (perhaps aided by the fact that the rest of us had stopped at the gate) and we were allowed through the gate (with several of us avoiding questioning the obstruction of a public right of way, out loud at least).
Photos here:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/106459429880001195754/albums/6106130563924497937And viewranger track:
http://my.viewranger.com/track/details/MTM1MjQ4Ng==