The Last Two in the Cadair Idris Range

Sun 20 May 2018

After breakfast (we asked for a smaller amount this morning!) and checking out of the B&B we set off for the village of Llanfihangel-y-pennant where we were to start today’s walk that would see us complete the last two Nuttalls in the Cadair Idris range. The village is famous for Mary Jones who inspired the founding of the British and Foreign Bible Society. We parked near Mary Jones’ Chapel and the first kilometre was on metalled road, passing the monument to Mary Jones in the ruin of her house.

At the end of the metalled section the route became a bridle path rising gently above the Afon Cadair. We deviated from Nuttall’s suggested route here – leaving the bridle way and keeping to the track that the book says is private. It now appears to be a permissive path, re-joining the bridle way about a kilometre further up the valley. A cuckoo flying low was a good spot here. A little further on at Hafoty Gwastadfryn we had our 10 minute banana/coffee break and heard and saw a reed bunting.

The route continued uphill on grassy slopes, eventually coming up to a fence which we followed west to the rocky top of Carnedd Lwyd. Our first summit, Tyrrau Mawr, was just a 10 minute walk further west. There is no cairn or trig pillar to mark the summit; just a grassy top where you had to decide for yourself where the highest point was. The ground fell away pretty precipitously to the north though.

Our route now turned south-west, descending 150metres to a col but still following a fence; not that we needed any navigation aid as the weather was fine and we could see our objective. Craig-y-llyn was another grassy top but with a white quartz rock that may, or may not, have marked the exact position of the summit. This is where I think we had our lunch break (as I am writing this a month after the event my memory is beginning to get a bit hazy).

The descent was fairly straightforward on the western slopes of Mynydd Pennant down across fields to Nant Caw-fawr (where Vince spotted a grey wagtail). The only issue was at Maes-y-llan where there was clearly no right of way through the farm as suggested by Nuttall. This necessitated continuing along the Afon Cadair for 800m to get back to the metalled road used at the start of the walk.

	Summit	Height (m)		Status
	Tyrrau Mawr	661		Hewitt, Nuttall
	Craig-y-llyn	622		Hewitt, Nuttall

Birds added to the list today:

Blue Tit	Collared Dove	Goldfinch
Great Spotted Woodpecker	Grey Heron	Grey Wagtail
House Martin	House Sparrow	Jackdaw
Reed Bunting	Starling	Swallow
Swift	Tree Pipit	Treecreeper
Whinchat	Whitethroat	Woodpigeon
Yellowhammer

Click here for an album of the weekend’s photos.

Cadair Idris (a Royal wedding free zone)

Fri 18 May 2018

Vince and I both took the day off from work and planned to make an earlier start on our drive to Wales than we normally do. Vince arrived at mine around lunchtime, and after a pot of tea in my garden, we set off about 1:30pm. The traffic turned out to be very heavy and the journey took us about an hour and a quarter longer than my satnav had predicted at the start. It was around 6:00pm that we arrived at The Wynnstay Arms in Llanbrynmair. After quickly dropping our gear in the room we headed to the bar for a curry and a pint (or three) of Hobgoblin.

There was no need for any discussion on what routes we might be doing; the weather forecast for the weekend was warm and sunny, so we already knew we would be doing Cadair Idris tomorrow and the two summits west of Cadair Idris on Sunday. This had been our plan last October, but Storm Brian’s rain and gale force winds had put paid to that.

Sat 19 May 2018

The day dawned bright and sunny, as predicted. After a far too big a breakfast (which defeated both of us), we headed off on the half-hour drive to Minffordd where our walk started. The car park was already quite busy, so we were not going to have the hill to ourselves today.

The walk starts on a well made path that leads upwards through delightful woodland beside a stream. Lots of birdsong, including redstart, blackcap and song thrush. We hoped to hear pied flycatcher as the habitat was right for them, but no luck. After 500m the woodland gives way to open hillside and the path leads in a kilometre or so to Llyn Cau. The path turns up hill a couple of hundred metres before Llyn Cau, but the setting is too good not to continue on to the shore of the lake to admire the stunning view. We stopped here for our customary banana break whilst taking in the scenery. The call of a cuckoo added to the atmosphere of the place.

Time to press on and now the route became a lot steeper as we ascended on the Minffordd path to the day’s first summit, Craig Cwm Amarch. But it did not seem that any great effort was needed, probably because of the frequent stops to admire the view and take photographs. In a little over an hour after leaving the shore of the lake we were at the summit.

The route continued north following the cliff top of Craig Cau, descending to a col. The path now ascended towards Penygadair, but our next objective was Cyfrwy which involved an out and back detour. Nuttall suggests keeping to the Penygadair path and then turning left short of the summit onto the old Pony Path. Sensible advise in mist when navigation might be difficult, but we had perfect visibility and could see where we were headed, so walked north-west straight up to the Pony Path and on to Cyfrwy.

Here we took time out to eat our packed lunches and admire more stunning views – Barmouth Bay to the west and the northern cliffs of Cadair Idris to the east. We spotted Canada geese and herring gull on Llyn y Gadair far below us.

Lunch over we re-traced our steps for half a kilometre before beginning the ascent to Cadair Idris itself, the highest point of the day. This is a popular mountain, so we had to wait our turn to stand by the pillar for our traditional summit shots.

Photos taken, we quickly pressed on to leave the crowds behind. Heading first for the 852m unnamed prominence on the ridge, we continued close to the cliff edge, heading for the day’s third summit, Mynedd Moel. The best birds of the day were seen here - a couple of male ring ouzels having what appeared to be a territorial dispute. An outcrop along the way provided an impressive photo opportunity to pose in front of the view to Barmouth and the northern cliffs of Cadair Idris.  Another 20 minutes and we were at the summit of Mynedd Moel.

From here it was about another 2km to the most eastern of the Cadair Idris peaks, Gau Graig. Again no trouble in route finding as we were still keeping close to the cliffs and a fence could be followed for much of the way. At Gau Graig we stopped for another 10minute refreshment break, before commencing the descent along the north-east ridge down to the right-of-way that led south-east around Mynydd Gwerngraig back to the A487. Thankfully, since our edition of Nuttall’s was published some permissive paths have been opened adjacent to the road, so we did not have to mix-it with the motorbikes and Porsches speeding along the route.

It was a long walk back to our starting point, but after barely more than a kilometre beside the road we crossed over and descended along the old road through Bwlch Llyn Bach. Being now well below the racetrack of the A487 we could no longer hear it, only the sound of birdsong in the trees and bushes along our route. This included willow warbler and garden warbler (though we never managed to actually see the garden warbler to confirm our ID).

	Summit	Height (m)		Status
	Craig Cwm Amarch	791		Hewitt, Nuttall
	Cyfrwy	811		Hewitt, Nuttall
	Cadair Idris	893		Hewitt, Marilyn, Nuttall
	Mynydd Moel	863		Hewitt, Nuttall
	Gau Graig	683		Hewitt, Nuttall

The complete list of birds:

Blackbird	Blackcap	Buzzard
Canada Goose	Carrion Crow	Chaffinch
Chiffchaff	Cuckoo	Dunnock
Garden Warbler	Great Tit	Herring Gull
Magpie	Meadow Pipit	Pied Wagtail
Raven	Red Kite	Redstart
Ring Ouzel	Robin	Skylark
Song Thrush	Stonechat	Wheatear
Willow Warbler	Wren

Click here for an album of the weekend’s photos.