Moel-ddu (SH 57965 44212; 552m) & Moel Hebog (SH 56519 46963; 783m)
Start Point: Car park by the dam at Llyn Cwmystradllyn
Weather: Another sunny day, albeit with an unfortunately stubborn cloud sitting atop Moel Hebog. A stiffer breeze than forecast, and being northerly, it was bitingly cold.
Distance and Ascent: 11.8km, 850m
Faffing in the car after arriving at Cwmystradllyn this morning, Mick observed that it looked a bit breezy out. He wasn't wrong, despite the Met Office having told me that the wind would be negligible. As that wind was northerly, and as temperatures have been low for a few days now, I knew I was in for a chilly outing.
After peeling off from the good track that had taken me so far up towards Moel-ddu, I didn't entirely follow the route I'd plotted, and I'm not sure whether the small distance I saved by cutting a corner outweighed the extra distance with a trodden line at least part of the way (I wasn't trying to cut a corner; I'd followed an ATV track that then started heading off downhill, at which point I took a direct line to the bwlch to the west of my objective, from where I saw a good trodden line coming over the nobble to the west of there, which had been my intended route).
I skirted the final nobble before climbing a wall stile and heading up towards the summit, at which point I looked back behind me and realised that the nobble I'd just skirted looked approximately the same height as where I was going. A quick bit of Googling told me it was under 3m lower, which (balanced with how close it was) I adjudged to be worth the short backtrack to visit it for insurance against a future survey changing where the summit lies.
I was soon at the actual top, and what a fine place it was to be. In fact, this entire outing was quite excellent.
Looking again at my recorded route, I wonder whether following the public footpath down to the 'Settlement' would have been a better choice, but then there was nothing difficult about the line I took. From the next dip in the landscape, I'd intended to head up and over the next lump that lay in my way, but starting having second thoughts about whether it would be more efficient to go over or to go around. After contemplating the point for far too long I decided that I was spending longer thinking about it than it would take to just get on with it and go over the top, so off I set again ... and after 50m of ascent I got drawn by an invisible force and skirted it. In hindsight, a good enough choice, I think.
I knew that I would join the route of the Paddy Buckley Round as I approached Moel Hebog, and thus expected to find a trodden line. That I did and I managed to more-or-less follow it for most of the way up. At the top of the steep bit of the climb, another couple of walkers hove into view - the first I'd seen since I set out, although they passed too far from me for a greeting beyond a wave.
As I'd set out I'd been optimistic that the cloud enveloping the top would have lifted by the time I got there, but it was proving stubborn. Thus it was a frozen world with no view. A minute or so after I arrived at the trig point, and before I went wandering off to find the actual high point, a couple of chaps joined me. They were unimpressed by the summit conditions, to which I observed that it did seem as if the only cloud in the entire area was sitting on this summit - it was a sore point for them as they were only on this hill today as the forecast had told them that the hills would be clearer towards the west.
They were soon back off, and after a bit of wandering around, I headed off myself, just as another couple arrived, and soon passed (again, at a remove such that only waves were exchanged) a group of seven. So, 13 people seen, all within about 500m of the summit, and nobody for the other 11km!
There's possibly a better route for getting back to the dam car park, but the one I took worked well enough, in that it got me down without incident (and with stiles/gates over all walls) other than plunging my feet into a bog just before I reached the track on the N side of the llyn. That's the only foot-plunging in four days of hills, in December. There are benefits to largely frozen ground!
Despite all the spanners that have been thrown into the works this year, I met my target of reaching my 600th Marilyn summit, and with a whole 2 days to spare. Given the continuing good forecast, I would have proposed staying another night and going up one of the bigger hills tomorrow, but I have good reason to need to be at home. So, I shall now live in fear of one of my summits being demoted or a summit moved before I get up any more hills!
Blogger has decided we're going with photos in reverse order today:
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