Yr Aran and the Third Foot and Mouth 15 October

Finally, our three-day interval next walk took place two days later.
I’d originally intended to climb Yr Aran, just next to Snowdon and then another Hewitt near Cwm Pennant, leaving just the one remaining Hewitt in Snowdonia to be bagged – Mynydd Mawr – a solitary hill with a boozah at the bottom – highly suitable for a last Hewitt if I ever bag all the others (Only 68 to go, so it looks hopeful at least)
In the end, I was knackered after just the one, and, I thought, so was the dog. So we went for a paddle in the sea instead.
But , turning our attention to Yr Aran for a while, we climbed this by using Snowdon’s Watkin path, turning off and climbing the Southe ridge of Yr Aran and retuning via Bwlch Cwm Llan.
It was foggy and drizzly and the rocks were slippery. I managed a few pirouettes and a graceful slide or two and resorted to gluteae for friction. I had the hill to myself, although I was aware that a couple from Rhayader were bagging the hill at the same time. But I didn’t see them.
What I did see, however,, was a location from “Carry on Up the Khyber” (She is enamoured of the khasi). I believe this is the location of the khasi pass – defended by the devils in skirts themselves. (The plot , of course, is based on the fact that the entire regiment is secretly wearing underpants under their kilts, although why a lack of trollies should scare the local taliban in a bit of a mystery. Bernard Breslaw’s performance of Bungdit In was a comedic classic and almost as enjoyable as Cnicht’s south ridge and the dinner during the siege was almost equivalent to the Nantlle ridge’s spiky bits.
I thought it was good anyway….6 Miles and just 2300 feet of upness.

Cnicht and Moelwyn Mawr 13 October

Walk four of my walk-every-third-day-in-Wales plan commenced just three days after the Blaenau hills walk on 13 October.
Today’s menu would start with the pyramidical Hewitt called Cnicht and be followed by the Hewitt/Marilyn Moelwyn Mawr and it’s satellite Moelwyn Bach.
This is, I have to report, another great classic Welsh hillwalk. If you go to Wales, you really ought to have a bash at this one.
We start at the hamlet of Creosor, an ex-quarrying village in Cwm Creosor, once concerned with the produiction of billard tables, apparently. Anyway, whatever, there’s a free car park and a café there now.
Arrows point the way to “Cnicht” and me and superdawg and two or three other parties were soon engrossed in the sheer pleasure of climbing up Cnicht’s south ridge.
This a narrow, rocky, spiky sort of affair, but never anywhere difficult or scary and almost gets to scrambling at one or two points, but doesn’t quite make it. If you climb this and you are scrambling, you’ve gone the wrong way.
The summit is an airy perch high above Cwm Creosor and the ridge continues Northwards in a bumpy kind of fashion. Two Nuttal-baggers (poor, demented souls) were busy bagging Cnicht North Top and I came across these two lads at various stages later in the day.
After the delights of Cnicht, we traversed a complex area of knolls and tarns, made a bit more complex by the fact that the path on the ground seems to be a bit South of the path on the map. Ultimately we get to start climbing the North ridge of Meolwyn Mawr, where we all bag the diminutive Nuttal, Moelwyn Mawr North Ridge Top (I think) A nice enough place, but it needs a better name…..
Me and Bruno continued to the top of Moelwyn mawr whilst the two Nuttal baggers baggerred off somewhere else. Moelwyn Mawr is another splendid high perch from which to survey a domain, if you have a domain to survey. Otherwise its quite a good place to eat chocolate.
Craigysyfarn was next – a smallish but veryu rocky bump a bit South and with a very steep descent to Bwlch Stwlan where there are ancient quarry traks and a circular shelter for the drinking of the last dregs of tepid coffee and a short snooze. The path avoids a direct approach to Moelwyn Bach’s crags by a little easterly and obvious path and soon pops out on to the wide summit.
We romped down the long Western ridge and then by road back to the start.
Another four Hewitts and a marilyn bagged (and, apparently, a Nuttal or two as well)
Fab walk in bright and at the same time, misty weather.
9 Miles and 3400 feet (that’s quite a lot of feet so far…!)

Manod Mawr and other things

Walk Three of my Welsh Wanderings in the Wain.
Ashley, it wasn;t raining, but it was very foggy on the hills, from about, say, 300 metres and upwards. I like to call this fog on the hills, “hill-fog”. There was hill fog and I decided that today, I might need a compass. Unfortunately, I ‘d left the damn thing, along with my other compasses (I have a collection) in Crook, some 250 miles away from base. Attempts to buy one in Blaenau Ffestiniog failed. So I determined to use my GPS instead. This worked well.
I left a misty and driech Blaenau to it’s cwmpass-less ness and plodded up through grey quarries on to a greenish-grey desert of damp brown grass and along tracks to a high tarn or lochan, or , maybe a little Llyn (Llyn bach?) one of two Llynau Barlwyd just below the beetling slopes of Moel Farlwyd, which superdawg pulled me up dogfully. We tarried not on the summit, but evacuated to the rocky bwlch or bealach just a bit East, and then, after destroying a banana by consumption, we toiled up the slopes of Moel Penamnen, our first Hewitt of the day, where we saw nothing but mist and a couple, the female of which said that Bruno reminded her of her departed pooch, the three-legged huntin’-hound Zero.
We tarried not yet again, but hurtled off on a kind of bearing over blank moors to Foel-Fras, where a bit of a view appeared for a while – some lochans under the mist – Llyn Newydd and Llyn Bowydd – reservoirs for the quarries.
We lunched on an island of rock in the heather and bog.
Afterwards, we slithered up to Manod Mawr North Top, followed by Zero’s ex-mistress and her partner where the clouds parted and a big view appeared.
The descent from this top to get to Manod Mawr is barred by a great big hole or quarry and any attempt at a direct traverse would end in ripped trousers and lost fingernails at best. Quarry tracks are the key, and these eventually lead the walker and his loyal pooch through the piles of slate to the moor leading up to Manod Mawr itself. Our third Hewitt and the today’s Marilyn.
Here, the mist closed in again and so it was blindly that we trotted down the hill to Llyn y Manod and a climb up Manod Bach in failing light. So that was little manod and Big Manod both bagged. Quarry tracks and an ancient incline took us easily down top Bethania for a short road-walk lead back to Blaenau, where a drunk at a bus-stop seemed to say something about monkeys to me…..?
Thanks to the ordnance survey for splitting this walk over two sides of a 1:25k map (dhuhh)
Its always foggy at Blaenau, it seems to me, and for a town in the midst of such baggable hills, it seems odd that there isn’t a place to buy a cwmpass or even a pair of socks. But the place is friendly enough, and, with its surrounding crags and quarries, its probably one of the most distinctive towns in Britain. You always know where you are when you’re in Blaenau.
10 miles and 3400 feet done today.

Nantlle Ridge 7 October

I embarked on this walk as another Hewitt/Marilyn bagging trip – there being two marilyns and four Hewitts on the route – without actually knowing that it was the Nantlle Ridge. The Nantlle Ridge, of course, being one of those classic Welsh ridges, apparently
I drove a long way up Cwm Pennant, paying the one pound parking charge at the farm where the farmer was doing something highly unpleasant to a calf, to the road end where a camper van was parked. The chap from the van said “hello” and introduced his wife’s black lab guide dog and explained the intricacies of the local paths, which are, as he said, a bit intricate at first.
But we soon found our way through intitial tussock and gorse defences through old slate quarries to the bridleway to Rhydd-Ddu and thus up through Cwm Marchnad to the summit of Y Garn, the first top on the ridge. It was fairly obvious from here that the rest of the ridge could prove interesting, the next top appearing to be a leaning spike of the sort you might find in a more ginger-haired highland region a bit further North.
And so, we nervously scrambled up Mynydd Drws-y-coed and sat on a ledge near the top. A couple scrambled up after me and asked how far the Nantle Ridge went. So, this was the Nantle Ridge eh? I’d heard of that somewhere…..
A section of narrow ridge connects Mynydd with Trum y Ddysgl, which has a stupendous view over the intervening corrie (sorry – Cwm….) and yet another narrow ridge connects this one with Mynydd Tal-y-mignedd. All good, clean fun so far. This last Mynydd has a dry stone pillar on the top, so I lunched in its shelter from a nithering wind. The couple I’d met earlier pressed on.
A steep drop off this Mynydd leads to Bwlch Dros-hern from which the path skirts crags on the North side of Craig Cwm Silyn before tracking up through bloulders to the top. From here the ridge is wide and grassy and/or bouldery to the final cairn on Garnedd Goch.
I descended by skirting the top of Craig-las and big scree fields to the top of a wide ridge which took me back down to Cwm Pennant.
Worra cracking walk. 9 Miles and 3600 feet of climbing. – and a bit scrambly, but nothing too serious, although one or two places were a bit awkward for the dog.
A white cud-chewing cow blocked the narrow road on the way home and wouldn’t get out of the way despite polite requests, blasphemy, verbal abuse and being driven at. It did seem vaguely interested in my headlights. Eventually, she ambled off, unconcerned.

Moel hebog and other stuff 4 October

The posting pause we just encountered was due to the fact that I’ve just spent two weeks in a caravan in Wales with the wife, superdawg and deaf Tammy (the other dog)
The protocol on these October hols in Wales is that I get to go and do outdoor stuff every third day. This is quite good as it happens because I can do good, solid hillwalks and spend two days sleeping and drinking whisky, during which my legs return , more or less, back to their normal flabby state. I may also get just a bit fitter this way, who knows.
Anyway, the result of all this is that my first walk of the holiday was aimed at the bagging of three rocky Hewitts just to the left of Beddgelert. For non- Welsh pronunciators, this is pronounced “Bethgelert”, with a soft “th”, as in “thesis. It isn’t pronounouced “Belgetherlot” or “BillGates’s spot” which is what another member of the Knipe family would have it.
We started in the free car park at Belgooglipot and messed around a bit at first by walking off in the wrong direction for a while and then, ultimately and more correctly over some soggy moor and thence upwards in a severely upwards kind of way up the NE ridge of Moel Hebog. This is a stiff climb which lurches upwards over a few rock steps, then zig zags a bit along bouldery ledges to a cairn on the end of a narrow ridge with a fab view of BigLallies and then more easily for a bit to a wide and grassy top.
Its all much easier than it looks and no rocks were harmed in the ascent.
A steep grassy descent took us down to Bwlch Mellionen where onward progress appears to be blocked by a crag. Luckily, the crag has a big rift in it which is easily negotiated and thus the next top Moel yr Ogof is reached.
The final summit was Moel Lefn from which a bit of accurate navigation has to be done to get off with any dignity and/or the backside of yer pants in tact in order to find the grassy scoop between the spiky crags with the big drops underneath.
A morass of tussocks follows to attain a forest road and a footpath which all leads inevitably back (if you go the right way) to the fleshpots of Biggalloot with it’s tourists and steam trains.
Bruno got quite excited by the arrival of a train for some reason. If he could have written down the number in a notebook, I expect he would.
Walk one done – Three Hewitts, one being also a Marilyn, bagged and 8 miles and about 3100 feet up upward lurching done.