A Fine Day in the Northern Rhinogs

Sunday 9 June 2019

Today dawned overcast but dry, as per last night’s forecast. We decided that the weather would be ok for our planned route in the Northern Rhinogs. After breakfast we packed up and loaded all our gear in the car. The midges were out in force and it was not until the following day that I realised I had been well and truly “midged” when the bites started to swell and itch. We drove to the start point, the last couple of kilometres on a very narrow road. Luckily we did not meet any vehicles coming in the other direction. The parking area at the end of the road was completely empty, so no problem parking. As we put on our boots it looked like it would be a great day for walking.

Jack pointed out our correct path; Vince and I had both assumed the wrong track was our route. I’m sure we would have both soon spotted our error though! The walking was easy on an old mining track (so absolutely no difficulty in navigation). We needed to find a turn off this track to follow a path heading south-east beside some cliffs. This turned out to be very easy to find and it was a truly delightful grassy terrace to follow past the derelict manganese mine workings. As Nuttall pointed out in their guide book these were exceptionally neat and tidy with no ugly spoil heaps that are usually left by miners.The path continued for about a kilometre before circling round to Llyn Du, where we stopped for our customary banana (and Twix) break.

The sun was now shining brightly as we skirted around the end of the cliffs and headed north to Moel Ysgyfarnogod. The grey volcanic rock, in large slabs in places, made a wonderful contrast with the green grass. A little bit of light scrambling and we were on the summit. The sunny weather made for much better summit shots than yesterday (and lots more of them!).

Our next summit, Foel Penolau, was in view only 400 metres away. It was well defended by cliffs though. We could have scrambled directly up according to Nuttalls, but a clear, safe route was not obvious, so we skirted around to the right to find an easy ascent. There were two large flat, rocky summits and we stood on both to ensure we had visited the top. Of course, whichever one we stood on, the other looked higher. After some more summit photos we clambered down off the top and stopped for a lunch break. As we got ready to continue a large party (a dozen plus) of walkers arrived. We are not used to meeting such large groups on our walks.

We descended into the re-entrant between Foel Penolau and Moel Ysgyfarnogod and headed north-west to a sheepfold tucked away below a rock defile. From there it was simply a matter of following a track through some more old mine workings, past Llyn Dywarchen and eventually picking up the track we had used on our outward trek. The car park was surprisingly full when we arrived back, but not sure if these belonged to the walkers we had met on the summit or not. We had not seen many other walkers apart from three we passed on the track when nearly back to the car.

A splendid walk to finish off the weekend – especially since the weather had been so awful the day before.

Click here for an album with more photos.

	Summit	Height (m)		Status
	Moel Ysgyfarnogod	623		Hewitt, Marilyn, Nuttall
	Foel Penolau	614		Sub-Hewitt, Nuttall