My idea for this is to post what I have been doing out and about (so I remember late on in life).  So yesterday my step-dad and myself went up to Brecon to see what the snow and ice conditions are like. In major preparation for this winter season, which will hopefully be amazing. We drove up to RAC corner, they are the waterfalls just after Story Arms. When we got up there we thought about getting out of the nice warm toasty car for about 5minuets knowing it was going to be about -3 outside. Eventually we grew the courage and opened the car door, got our boots on, and I put on my lovely Rab Summit Jacket (I love that coat!), and started our walk up. We had a selection of axes with us, Black Diamond Black Prophet, DMM Rebels and a DMM Fly. The Black Prophet was mine, and I only took the hammer as I knew we would not be climbing but finding a flat piece of ice to practice placing ice screws. We swapped axes around a fair bit on the walk and, and discovered none of the axes where particularly great for walking! The Black Diamond (hammer) and the DMM Fly both had a rather annoying lump in it that would dig into your hand, however on inspection when I got home the adze doesn't have this lump. The rebels where okay but I found the heavily angled shaft a bit strange to get used to. So next time I will just take my walking axe or my adze, but it is worth something thinking about if you are looking at buying an axe. After we worked our way up to the frozen waterfalls we discovered the ice isn't quite as nice as we liked to we walked further and further up until we found a nicely frozen section. The upper part was perfect for climbing, but the lower bit wasn't so our feet stayed firmly on the ground. We did find some nice chunks of ice to practice Abalokov threads (aka V threads) and how to place a good ice screw. It all went very well, we then swung our axes at the nicely formed ice. To my surprise they all felt absolutely amazing! The DMM Rebels you only need to swing slightly, they hit the ice and just stick! One hit and they where fantastic, the bent shaft also stopped you hitting your knuckles on bulges. The DMM Fly was also quite nice, and had to put a bit more force into it, but 90% of the time they would hit and stick no problem at all. The slightly bent shaft nearly avoided your knuckles on bulges but not quite. The Black Diamond Black Prophets where sticking much like the Rebels, you swing slightly and they just stay, the shaft is not quite as curved which meant that you hit your knuckles big time if you where not careful. At this point we where starting to get pretty cold, standing around in the same place, with lots of wind, our gloves where soaking and our down jackets where iced up! So we decided to call it a day and trod back down to the car.

All in all it was a fantastic day, well 4 hours out! I then went back to Cardiff where I met a friend and we went for Hot Chocolate. We went to Martin's Chocolatier in St Davids 2, if you have a sweet tooth it is the place to go! Mint hot chocolate with white chocolate melted on top. We spend a good two hours sitting and talking, and by the end of it the end of my hot chocolate was cold, and they where closing... oops.

 Not sure when I will get to go play outside again (hopefully tonight) but when I do I will post up.

Josh

p.s. we where using a 18cm Black Diamond Turbo ice screw.