Weather: Wall-to-wall sunshine. Icy cold in the shade, but by the middle of the day feeling relatively warm (emphasis on the 'relative' part of that description) in the sunshine.
Carneddol (SH 30119 33100; 236m)
As soon as I'd made sure that Mick didn't reverse into any mud whilst turning around, before parking, I hopped over a gate and made haste up a rough grazing field of sheep. Such haste had I made in my departure that I hadn't picked up a hat or gloves, nor had I changed my fleece for a proper jacket. By the top, I was regretting the lack of gloves in particular - there was frost on the ground and my poor little fingers were burning. However, knowing that I'd be back in the warm within 20 minutes (within 15 minutes, as it turned out), I wasn't in fear of them dropping off!
Mynydd Anelog is the most westerly Marilyn on the Lleyn Peninsula*, and after the quick detour to do Carneddol at dawn, I was going to work my way east through all the others. This is another 'if I'd known then' one, as I passed within 300m (linear) and 60m (vertical) of its summit when I walked this section of the Wales Coast Path in September 2014; I started my Marilyn campaign in November 2014. (*there is also Bardsey Island, which I won't be doing as the £50 ferry fare is too steep for me to justify when there are quite a few other Marilyns that I will never summit.)
There's not much to say about this one, other than that it continued the theme of being a good viewpoint. There's a lot of low-lying farmland on the Lleyn Peninsula, meaning that the Marilyns really stand out. I was back at the start within 20 minutes, and that included a few minutes at the summit.
Carn Fadryn (SH 278 351; 371m)
I'd originally intended to visit the Lleyn Peninsula in July, parking Bertie-the-Motorhome on a Temporary Holiday Site in Porthmadog and spending a couple of weeks in the area, tootling around in Erica. On this hill, with its lower reaches covered in dead bracken, I appreciated again that circumstances had me in the area in December, rather than in peak growing season.
With my approach to this one being on the sunny side of the hill, and with it now approaching the middle of the day, I was finally warm. Too warm, really, even though I'd shed my jumper before I started.
After all of the people encountered yesterday, this was the first one today where I met anyone - a family of three with elderly mum struggling up the stone steps, but with adult children helping her along. I passed them again as I was on my way down and stopped for a brief chat with daughter whilst son continued the '1 - 2 - 3 - up you come' efforts on the continuing steps. Their progress was slow but they were in good spirits and I have confidence that she made it to the top.
Garn Boduan (SH 312 393; 280m)
By the time we were on our approach to this hill, it felt like we had driven every tiny lane on the peninsula, which is perhaps why I decided it wasn't worth the 3 mile driving detour to the S side of the hill to facilitate a linear route, from S to N.
The downside of the northside, made worse by it being through trees, was that the heat of the sun on the previous hill was now but a distant memory. The ground was hoary white and I suspect it hadn't thawed for several days.
It was another fine viewpoint of a summit, and I visited it twice, having managed to convinced myself not many metres into the descent that I was dropping off the hill the wrong way. I finally worked out that the line I'd drawn on the map was not the route the path actually takes and thus I had been going the right way.
People were apparently out in force on this hill, in that I kept hearing voices, but with a variety of paths, I met noone on my way up and only two groups on the way down. The second was a family group and one of them commented that I looked like I was on a mission, and they were quite right. I only had five hills on the agenda for today, but had realised that if I got down from this one reasonably promptly, I could fit a sixth in.
The second pimple from the left would be my final hill of the day
Yr Eifl (SH 365 447; 560m)
Rather unusually, this was a hill that Mick had previously been up, but I hadn't. Whilst I was walking the Coast Path in 2014, he was sitting in the car park waiting for me, it was a nice day and there was a hill right there -->, so he nipped up it. I recalled him having done that, and my contemporaneous blog confirms it, but he had no recollection of it until I showed him a photo of the summit when I got down.
I'd like to claim that it was intentional, after a day of fundamentally out-and-back routes, that I did a circuit on this one, but the reality is that I just chose the wrong path soon after leaving the car park and thus found myself on an increasingly narrow trod through heather. Moreover, it felt like it was taking me past the hill, and although I kept patiently waiting for it to turn up the slope, I eventually gave in and just cut up over some boulders. A few moments later I saw a couple striding down the path a few metres to my left. Of course, now that I see my line on the map, it looks perfectly sensible.
I took the tourist path down, and found it steep and eroded, so maybe there wasn't much to choose between the two routes after all.
Even though the day's cumulative distance and ascent wasn't that big, I was certainly ready to stop once I got back to the car park - which is a good thing, as it was now approaching 3.30pm and the sun wasn't too far above the horizon.I could be wrong, but I think that 6 may be the most Marilyns I've ticked off in a day before. I certainly remember some 5-hill days, but nothing above that springs to mind.
The distinctive trig-point topper on Yr Eifl that jogged Mick's memory that he had indeed been up there.
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