Exploring North Wales – September 2024

Sunday 22 September 2024

A few days with Helen in North Wales staying at The Royal Victoria Hotel in Llanberis (a bit classier than my usual accommodation). The main purpose of the trip was for Helen to climb Snowdon but we also intended to spend a couple of days exploring North Wales.

We took a leisurely journey to Wales on a wet Sunday afternoon, breaking for lunch at Frankley services on the M5. The weather forecast for the coming week predicted rain; the more detailed mountain forecast suggested that Tuesday would be the best day for Snowdon.

Monday 23 September 2024

So on Monday we drove to Caernarfon and explored the castle. After two or three hours exploring this fascinating building we wandered around the town and found a tea shop before heading off to Beddgelert. Here we embarked on a short walk taking in the Bedd Gelert stone monument and a path along the Afon (river) Colwyn. We capped off the day with a delicious lunch of ciabatta and scones at a local café.

 Tuesday 24 September 2024

After a hearty breakfast at the hotel, we made a quick stop at the Spar shop in Llanberis to grab lunch before heading up the Llanberis Pass. As the Pen-y-Pass car park now must be reserved in advance my intention was to get the Sherpa bus from Llanberis. This could either be caught at the Nant Peris car park or at the bus stop opposite the station in Llanberis (only 200m from our hotel). There is only one bus leaving from the station at 8:00am to which Helen said No Way! She also vetoed this plan as the thought of having to wait for a bus to bring us back did not appeal. So we opted for the pricey reserved parking which we booked/paid for online on Monday. Upon arriving at Pen-y-Pass at 9:15 the attendant moved the cones to allow us in and pointed to the available parking spaces. All very efficient.

As this was Helen’s first time on Snowdon (in fact only her third mountain after Pen-y-Fan and Corn Ddu) I intended to keep it simple and ascend on the PYG track and come down the Miner’s track.

  

After a quick photo stop at the marker post we set off up the PYG track. Although it was overcast and the mountain tops were in cloud the weather was quite kind to us apart from the occasional few spots of rain. The unhurried ascent to Bwlch y Moch took us about 90 minutes. Although Snowdon's summit remained shrouded in cloud we enjoyed some stunning views of the surrounding mountains.

At some point before we reached the Miner’s track / PYG track junction I handed the walking poles to Helen. She found it much easier using these. A ten minute banana/drink break (but without bananas as we didn’t think to pick them up from the hotel breakfast bar or purchase any in the shop!) taken well before we reached the Zig-zags.

Once we passed the Zig-zags, the cloud cover enveloped us, obscuring any further views. The summit was busy, but not as crowded as I've seen it before, so we didn't have to wait long for our obligatory summit photos. We rested and enjoyed our lunches inside the summit café.

For our descent, we followed the PYG track back to the top of the Miner's track. The Miner's track descends quite steeply down to the shore of Glaslyn, but we negotiated it without any major issues, except for a minor slip by Helen. Once we reached Glaslyn, the well-made Miner's track provided an easy return to Pen-y-Pass.

Wednesday 25 September 2024

After our exhilarating climb of Snowdon the day before, we decided to take a more leisurely day and explore the charming village of Portmeirion. This picturesque Italianate village, located on the coast of North Wales, is renowned for its colourful buildings, beautiful gardens, and unique atmosphere and was the setting for the famous 1960s TV series The Prisoner.

As we strolled through the village on a somewhat drizzly day, we were captivated by the vibrant hues of the buildings, ranging from pastel pinks and yellows to deep blues and greens. The intricate details of the architecture, combined with the lush gardens and winding pathways, created a truly magical setting.

We enjoyed a delicious lunch at one of the village's little cafés. Oh, and we saw Alan Carr driving through the village filming for the BBC’s Interior Design Masters programme.

Thursday 26 September 2024

Check-out and drive home. The usual delays on the M6 and lunch at Warwick Services on the M40.

More photos here

Garreg Llwyd–The Westernmost Summit of the Brecon Beacons

Monday 18 March 2024

Our weekend, unusually for us, stretched into Monday to give us an extra day of walking. We decided to use it to bag Garreg Lwyd which neither of us had done previously. This is the westernmost of the Beacons and is within Black Mountain, not to be confused with the Black Mountains at the eastern end of the park where we were on Saturday and Sunday. The drive from our base in Abergavenny took about 75 minutes, longer than it would take us to walk to the summit.

The weather was the best of the weekend and from our parking spot high up on the A4069 mountain road it was an easy walk of just 30 minutes over grass to get to the summit. The trig pillar was unusual in that it was made from stone rather than the usual concrete construction. Next to the trig point stood a huge cairn built from large grey rocks, hollowed out into a shelter where we sat to take a coffee break.

Rather than descend the same way we headed north past a small pool and some of the many shake holes that proliferate on Black Mountain. Finally we skirted by the disused quarries back to the car.

	Summit	Height (m)		Status
	Garreg Lwyd	616		Hewitt, Nuttall

All the photos from the weekend here.

The Western Black Mountains

Sunday 17 March 2024

Before setting-off we bought sandwiches from the petrol station near The Victoria.

Once at our destination parking the car proved a little tricky. The parking area was small at the side of a very narrow road. There was only room for about three cars, but two were already there when we arrived. The problem was that the remaining space was a) mostly under water and b) the road edge in front of it was broken away leaving a drop that would have grounded the car had we driven over it. I managed to reverse the car in at an angle into the space avoiding the drop. We had to unload our gear from the car before reversing in so that we did not have to stand in the water to get it.

A permissive path led us south-west through a muddy field and then along the edge of a wood to the access land. An obvious path through bracken continued for a short distance, slanting up the hill side before a lone hawthorn tree (as per Nuttall) indicated where the path turns uphill for the steep ascent to the summit of Pen Cerrig-calch. Initially a difficult slog through heather, but as we neared the top this gave way to an equally challenging area of large grey boulders. A rather sad and neglected trig pillar marked the summit. We took our banana and coffee break taken in the nearby cairn/shelter.

An easy walk of 2km on a good path beside the edge of the ridge saw us to the next summit, Pen-Allt-mawr. The trig pillar here looked even sadder than the last, having become detached from its base and standing forlornly next to the scattered rocks of the summit cairn. If there were any views they were obscured by hill fog.

We descended northward on a  clear path, stopping briefly for me to put on an extra layer as I was beginning to feel cold. The path curved around the head of Cwm Banw before the slight rise again to the flat summit of Pen Twyn Glas, marked by an insignificant flat stone with a small fist- sized rock placed on it. A good view back to the previous summit of Pen Allt-mawr, with its top still shrouded in the cloud that had spoilt our views. We descended a few metres east to shelter from the wind and eat our lunch. A couple of other walkers arrived to do the same as we donned our packs ready to continue.

A little over two kilometres of easy walking saw us at the next summit of Mynydd Llysiau, another flat, grassy top marked with a small heap of stones. Looking back the cloud base was now above our previous summits.

A further 15 minutes and we were down at the col between Mynydd Llysiau and Waun Fach. We thought at this point that we probably did not have enough time to complete the other three summits so we decided to descend on the broad, grassy bridle track back down into the valley. The track soon deteriorated into a muddy morass in places, so it became a long slog of about 7k back to the car.

A surprise awaited us back at the car – some numpty had parked almost in front of us making it very difficult to extract my car from the awkward spot we had had to park it in. 

	Summit	Height (m)		Status
	Pen Cerrig-calch	701		Hewitt, Nuttall
	Pen Allt-mawr	719		Hewitt, Nuttall
	Pen Twyn Glas	646		Sub-Hewitt, Nuttall
	Mynydd Llysiau	663		Hewitt, Nuttall

Dinner was at The Greyhound Vaults as The Victoria was not serving food on a Sunday evening.

More photos here

The Eastern Black Mountains

Friday 15 March 2024

Our base for this weekend was Park Guest House B&B in Abergavenny which Vince had sorted out. It proved an ideal location for exploring Bannau Brycheiniog (as we must now call the Brecon Beacons). We had arrived in the rain late Friday afternoon. As it was a B&B we had to seek out an evening meal ourselves. We settled on the Victoria Bar just 300m along the road from our billet.

Saturday 16 March 2024

I wanted to tackle the 12 summits of the Black Mountains as I had not yet done any of these. Vince agreed even though he had climbed them all before. Nuttall suggested starting at Capel-y-ffin, but I thought the parking looked restricted so suggested starting the route at the better parking area at the Gospel Pass. It was about a 40 minute drive, the last part on a long, narrow, much pot-holed single-track road, but luckily we did not meet any vehicles coming the other way.

Just before we got to our parking spot we passed some workers ready with large bags of paving material which were being transported up to Black Mountain slung from a long cable underneath a helicopter. It was busy doing this all morning.

As we prepared to set off the sky was overcast and the temperature was a chilly 6°C, but it was not raining as yet.

Our first summit was Twmpa (aka Lord Hereford’s Knob). After an initial muddy start a good path led the way. It only took us 20 minutes to make the 140m ascent and 1.4km to the top. The summit was marked with a scattering of flat stones collected into a low pile which could hardly be described as a cairn. The cloudy, grey day meant the views were not that good, but we could clearly see our next summit of Rhos Dirion to the south-west and the path that would lead us to it.

The 2.3km to Ros Dirion was covered in 30 minutes of easy walking. This was our highest point of the day. The white paint on the trig pillar had seen better days and the stencilled red Welsh dragons on each side looked very weather beaten and worn.

We continued south-east on a well made path. We stopped for a coffee break on the minor top of Twyn Talycefn, 1.2km south-east of Ros Dirion..The helicopter was now flying over us carrying its loads in the direction of Waun Fach. The path continued without any deviation in direction to the next summit of Chwarel-y-Fan. After summiting we retraced our steps for a kilometre or so back to the cairns on Y Fan for our lunch stop.

We now had to lose height and descend into the Vale of Ewlas and pass through Capel-y-ffin. There were three cars parked where Nuttall recommended we start the walk, so we probably would have been ok here. The paths in the valley were particularly muddy (it had been the wettest winter on record). We followed a lane past the chapel and began to ascend back out of the valley, through fields where the going was still pretty soft. We crossed a stile back onto the access land to find a 20m section of path that was underwater. We managed to creep past along the muddy edge without getting our feet wet. The ground steepened as we ascended up to the Offa’s Dyke ridge.

Once the ridge was gained we turned left (north-west) on the Offa’s Dyke Path. In only 300m we gained Black Mountain South Top. This, I discovered when writing this, is no longer a Nuttall – it was deleted in January 2021 as it only has 14.7m drop (just 30cm short of the 15M required).

The walking was easy along the ridge as most of the way was paved with flag-stones. The weather was beginning to deteriorate – rain and hill-fog. There were a  multitude of cairns along the path, but we assumed Black Mountain’s summit was the rock that had been painted orange as there was nothing else that distinguished the top. No views because of the hill fog.

Next onto Hay Bluff. Although at 677m it is high enough to be classed as a Nuttall, it fails because it only has an 11m drop. The trig point was surrounded by a moat of rain water which we could not avoid stepping through in order to reach. The scenery from here is rumoured to be quite fine, but we could not see anything as the weather had closed in. The 1.5k walk south-west from here back to the Gospel Pass was pretty grim as the wind was driving the rain straight into our faces.

	Summit	Height (m)		Status
	Twmpa	680		Hewitt, Nuttall
	Rhos Dirion	713		Sub-Hewitt, Nuttall
	Chwarel y Fan	679		Hewitt, Nuttall
	Black Mountain South Top	637		Deleted Nuttall
	Black Mountain	703		Hewitt, Marilyn, Nuttall

We had dinner in The Victoria again.

Some more photos here.