The Last Y Garn

Sun 22 Oct 2017

We had had Y Garn in the Rhinogs on our to-do list for sometime (I had done a route plan back in July 2013), as it was an ideal single summit to fit in as one of our shorter Sunday walks. So, after checking out of The Wynnstay Arms, we headed off to the village of Ganllwyd with my satnav leading the way and Vince and Jack following.  In 35 minutes we were at the National Trust car park and getting our boots and waterproofs on in preparation for another wet day in the Welsh hills.

The route initially followed the Afon Gamlan and its spectacular Rhaeadr Du (Black Waterfalls). We made a short detour to get a better look at them – with the amount of rain that had fallen in the last 24-48 hours they were an impressive sight. Having admired the falls we pressed on, the first kilometre or so on paths within woodland before emerging onto the open hillside near some old mine workings. At a small pond just above these workings the first spots of rain began to fall.

We headed on up, crossing one broken down wall, and heading up to the substantial wall above Bryn Bedwog that Nuttall said we had to climb over as there were no stiles. We sheltered under the wall for a ten minute banana break and then began to look for a suitable spot to cross. It was a substantial two metre high wall with a couple of rows of barbed wire atop it (surely this was not to thwart sheep but hill walkers?). After an abortive attempt to cross, Vince noticed what looked like a ladder stile about 150m to our right in the mist. This was soon confirmed by checking through binoculars, so contrary to Nuttall there was an easy crossing.

Once over the wall the summit was just 600m away with 130m of ascent still to do. The wind on the top was still pretty fierce, so we only hung around long enough for our customary record shots on the summit. We headed north-east to descend what was an initially very steep section beside a wall on Ffridd Gwndwn-uchaf. At a farmhouse we left the hillside and crossed a field to pick up a track that led us back into the woods, eventually joining up with our outward route back to the car park.

After changing out of our damp clothes and having a bite to eat we went on our separate ways.

On bagging this Nuttall, I have now done all four of the “Y Garns” in Wales (Glyders, Pumlumon, Moel Hebog and Rhinogs).

Summit	Height (m)	Status
Y Garn	629	Hewitt, Marilyn, Nuttall

Completing Central Wales

Fri 20 Oct 2017

A year since our last hill walking trip, Vince, Jack and I were looking forward to a weekend in the mountains. Today was our travelling day to our base at The Wynnstay Arms in Llanbrynmair. As it was the start of half-term week, Vince and Jack were going on to Helen’s parents in Stafford after our trip, so we journeyed in separate cars. The school holiday resulted in the motorways being very busy so our journeys took much longer than expected. My satnav avoided the heavily congested motorways (apart from a short section of the M5), but took me right through the centre of Cheltenham at rush hour! Vince and Jack had an horrendous journey from Kent on the motorways. I arrived around 19:45, Vince and Jack about an hour later.

We had already planned what we intended to do this weekend – Cadair Idris. Vince and I first did Cadair together in July 2004, but that was before we discovered Nuttall’s and we did not bag all the two-thousand foot summits on that trip. This was going to be our opportunity to correct this, and on Sunday, to do the two summits west of Cadair Idris to complete all the hills in the range.

Well, that was the plan, but as the weekend approached we all knew that it was not going to happen – Storm Brian was approaching from the Atlantic and 50mph winds, gusting to 70mph, were forecast. Cadair Idris with its paths close to cliffs was not a place to be in these conditions.

So, over a couple of pints in the bar we decided to drive south to New Radnor and ascend the three hills in the Radnor Forest that we needed to complete the Central Wales group. The forecast was still awful, but at least they were grassy, rounded hills so no chance of being blown over cliffs!

Sat 21 Oct 2017

Vince volunteered to drive us down to New Radnor (my new car had been rear-ended travelling to work on Thursday morning, so was a little poorly). It took about an hour to get there. We parked up under the Cornewall-Lewis Memorial.

Initially the weather was not too bad; the sun even tried to appear at times, but as we got higher and more exposed the wind increased. On Bache Hill, our first summit, it was difficult to stand, and trying to hold cameras still to take photos was all but impossible. From Bache Hill we could just see the radio mast on Black Mixen, 2km distant and our next objective.

Route finding to Black Mixen presented no difficulties as firstly we had fences to follow, and then a rough track. The wind blowing from the south-west, our left, made walking in a straight line very difficult though. We entered the compound of the radio mast and ate our lunch sheltered behind a building. The wind was making a horrendous noise as it blew through the structure of the radio mast.

Again, route finding to our next summit was straightforward, with forest edges and fences to follow. Much of the forest had been clear-felled but the edges were still obvious. We took a bearing from a bend in the fence and headed off towards the summit. Thankfully Great Rhos has a trig pillar marking its summit, otherwise it would have been tricky to find the highest point on this typically Welsh flat-topped, grassy summit plateau.

As we descended south we took a precautionary GPS fix as we had not found the track that we we wanted for our descent. Once we knew our exact position we soon located the path, which turned out to offer a delightful  descent to Harley Dingle and then on to our start point in New Radnor.

More photos

Summit	Height (m)	Status
Bache Hill	610	Hewitt, Nuttall
Black Mixen	650	Hewitt, Nuttall
Great Rhos	660	Hewitt, Marilyn, Nuttall