Wednesday 6 May: Gathersnow Hill & Goseland Hill

In our hasty packing for this trip, whilst also trying to decide on where we would be going and what we would be doing, I belatedly decided that I needed to include my mountain bike, to ease access to one particular hill in the Braemar area. Thus the abandoned steed was hauled out of the shed, where it has sat unused for the last 6.5 years (I think; I'm relying on a dodgy memory and some searching of this blog). After pumping up the tyres, I took it for a spin along the road, just far enough to establish the gears still worked adequately before I put it in Bertie's boot. 

Other than 'a few hills in the Braemar area', we left home without a plan, so this morning over breakfast (in a layby near Shap) I pored over my records on hill-bagging.co.uk and found there were a few hills along the A701, between Moffat and Edinburgh that I haven't visited yet, and as the first one I looked at lent itself to being accessed by bike, it became my objective for the day. It was a bonus that it had such an excellent name.

Gathersnow Hill (NT058256; 689m)

Start Point: End of windfarm track, on A701, at NT 11004 27724. Room to park a car without obstructing the gate. 

Distance and ascent: Bike: 12.0km, 220m, Walk: 3.1km, 320m

Weather: Sunny intervals.   

 

Blue = bike, red = walk.  

 

Fortunately, Mick had no aspirations to join me on this one, as there wasn't really room to park Bertie-the-Motorhome at the end of the windfarm track, so he was positioned blocking half of the gateway, with Mick available to move him should the need arise. It didn't, which is surprising (based on previous experience that the moment you pull up in a gateway, someone wants to use it). 

 

Getting the bike out isn't an easy endeavour (half the boot needs to be emptied first), but Mick made short work of it whilst I faffed, and with the front wheel reattached and the brake reengaged (a key part of the process that I may have overlooked once or twice), we joined forces to heave the great lump of heaviness over the locked gate. 

 

A couple of minutes later, I realised that I had completely forgotten how to use gears, which resulted in me pushing up the first significant incline. Happily, I soon got to grips with which gear was which and the rest of the outing went smoothly (even if I did have to ride through a herd of cows with calves at one point; I approached slowly and talked to them nicely, and they all moved politely out of the way for me). 

 

The track was pretty decent, if rough in places, up to the remote house at Hopehead. Beyond, there was a mix of hard track and grassy surface, but all dry enough at the moment that I could still make easy enough progress. 

 

My intention had been to go to the end of the track, but at Nether Cule Burn, it seemed that it would be more efficient to just head straight up the hill, rather than going the long way around. The bike was abandoned, and I was just about to strike off up the hill, when I saw a trodden line heading up onto the spur a little further to the west - less direct, but the extra distance would be offset by the relative ease of an ATV track. 

 

The ATV track took me so far, then petered out, and I continued across ground that was neither smooth, nor too rough, constantly thinking that there was probably another ATV track just to my left. I concluded many years ago (if I went searching, I could probably find the blog post - it was a hill somewhere up the Great Glen) that if the going isn't too dreadful, then there's no point weaving around searching for a good line that may not exist. So, bash onward I did, until I did eventually converge with the ATV track that had indeed been to my left for some while.

 

The summit was an excellent viewpoint and a worthwhile objective. I took in the views, took a few snaps, then rather than retracing my steps, I dead-headed for where I'd left the bike. A steep descent, but quick.

 

The return bike ride wasn't all downhill, but I did it significantly faster than the outward leg. Just knowing how all the gates fastened was a benefit, as was the fact that the herd of cows had dispersed and this time I only had to deal with four adults. 

 

Back at Bertie the boot was again half emptied, the bike stowed and off we went to Broughton for a late lunch - a location chosen purely because I knew there was a car park here, as we'd used it last year when I did a round of three hills to the east of the village. 

 

Over lunch, I looked at the map and contemplated another hill nearby that would also lend itself well to being approached by bike. As much as I wanted to sit around and do nothing all afternoon, as it's not often that I have the bike with me, it seemed silly not to put it to good use, so out it came again, and off I pedalled to...

 

Goseland Hill (NT 07115 35014; 435m)

Start Point: Broughton Village Hall Car Park

Distance and ascent: Bike: 11km, 100m; Foot: 1.8km, 190m

 

Blue = bike; red = walk

 

Cycling on tarmac is a whole lot easier than than toiling up a rough or grassy track - that was my main observation from this afternoon!

 

The bike took me to the access track to Gosland, to the S of the hill, where I locked it up under a tree (and spotted a Geocache in the process), then took to my feet to attack the side of the hill. Trying to find grassy bits through the heather as much as I could, I eventually stumbled upon a really good ATV track that looked like it would have been the better line of ascent, although I didn't follow it for long, as I couldn't resist taking a more direct line.

 

The top was another excellent viewpoint, so I sent a short video to Mick to show him what he was missing as well as taking my usual snaps. Being a tad nippy (it was now late afternoon and at no point had the day been hot in any case - 9 degrees was the warmest we saw on Bertie's display, and the forecast suggested a high of 5), I didn't linger long. 

 

The ATV track that had looked promising on the outward leg proved not to be as beneficial as I'd thought - it was too steep for comfort, as well as being less direct, so after a short while on it, I decided that going through the heather was the better option after all. 

 

Getting back to Bertie just 20 minutes after reaching the bike, I was rather proud of my speediness, until Mick pointed out that Sebastian Sawe (who won the London marathon a couple of weeks ago) ran faster than I had managed to cycle, and he'd had to go considerably further.  

 

Looking back to the remote house at Hopehead. It looks habitable, but uninhabited. 

At this point I wished I'd taken the trouble to put the rear mud-guard on my bike before I set out!

Now on foot, heading up the hill, the view looking back down the glen

A bit rough, but not bad going. The ATV track off to my left would have been easier, though.

Gathersnow Hill summit selfie

Apparently I only took snaps from the top of Goseland Hill. Here's the trig point and a snippet of the excellent summit view. 
 

Wednesday 14 January - Drygarn Fawr & Carn Gefallt

It was -4 degrees as we set out from Rhayader this morning for the drive into the Elan Valley and even on first glance out of the window an hour earlier, it had been obvious that there was a temperature inversion. The drive alongside the Caban-coch Reservoir was particularly atmospheric, with the fog hanging over the water, leaving visibility on the road clear. I was pleased with the cold conditions: the ground would be frozen, and surely everyone prefers a hill day to be dry and cold rather than warm and wet?

Drygarn Fawr (SN 862 584, 644m)

Start Point: Car park at the SW end of Caban-coch Reservoir - a much smaller car park than I'd expected, but plenty of room for us (as we were the only vehicle there). 

Distance and Ascent: 12.9km, 420m

Mick came with me for the first couple of kilometres of this one - the section along a track. With the amount of ice on its surface, it turned out to be the trickiest bit of the outing. Once I left the tracks and headed out onto the open hill, the ice was more easily avoided and almost all of the ground was frozen solid (the exceptions being a couple of areas of running water). 

 

What a place to be on such a crisp morning, and clear too with the cloud hanging on the other side of the hill, leaving my side clear, and with lumps and bumps spreading out in all directions. 

 

On top of superb surroundings (so much emptiness!) and the favourable ground conditions, when I consulted the map when the ground seemed to be levelling out, it was to find that I had 3.5km left to the summit, but only 150m of ascent, meaning I'd already done the hardest part and the rest of the outing was going to be a breeze. 

 

When I first saw the summit, it appeared much closer than it really was, but (as is to be expected) the map wasn't lying to me as to the distance. After three days of positive temperatures, before last night's plummet back negative, I'd expected all of the snow to be gone, but there was still a sizeable patch just before the summit, around which I opted to detour. 

 

With the big summit cairn visited (and the trig, just for good measure), I was retracing my steps when I looked up to see a Hercules apparently hanging in the air in front of me. I have no idea how they can travel so slowly without falling out of the air, but I managed to take my glove off, get my phone out and get a snap in the small window before it disappeared around the side of the next hill. It's position relative to me meant that I hadn't heard it coming (unlike Mick, back in the car park, who had thought there was a tractor coming, until he realised the tractor was above him). 

 

With no phone signal in the car park meaning that I couldn't keep Mick updated as to progress, he'd asked me at what point he should start to worry. Many times in this situation, I've set myself a timescale that has proved to be overly optimistic and ended up hurrying and anxious about being late, so today I said to give me 4 hours before considering that some ill fate had befallen me. It was only as I descended that I realised that Mick had done his maths wrong when he'd said that he would worry at 1230 (given that we'd set out at around 0915). Fortunately, with the good ground conditions combined with a friendly gradient, I was faster than even my optimistic estimate today.  

 

The intention had been to go straight to the next hill, but I'd also decided on the way down that as Mick was doing a lot of sitting around in car parks and laybys, it would be nice to nip back into Rhayader for lunch at a cafe before driving the few kilometres back out of town. As it went, we didn't need such a big detour, as we pulled in at the Elan Valley Visitor Centre instead, where I had a good lunch and Mick had an incredibly disappointing one. Then onwards to the final hill of this little trip.

 

After a foggy start to the drive, alongside the reservoir the low cloud was only over the water

A lovely frozen track in a largely empty landscape

Still fog in the valley on that side of the hill 

 The wind at the top was absolutely biting!

 

 The overflowing dam by the Visitor Centre was an impressive sight. We had a view of it from the cafe. 

 

Carn Gefallt (SN 940 646; 467m)

 

Start Point: pull in at end of public footpath at SN 949 659 

Distance and ascent: 6.5km, 280m 

 

There was some confusion in my note-making for this one, leading us to stop in a different pull-in from the one I'd originally intended (opposite the farm track at SN 946 657), and thus a slightly different route was taken, although in the grand scheme of things it made little difference on the way up and only a positive difference on the way down. 

 

The downside of approaching the hill from this side was that I needed to pass through a farmyard with the risk of farm dogs. There turned out to be many such dogs (I saw at least 7), but they were all in kennels and in most cases I only saw noses poking through grids on the doors. 

 

My notes (made some months ago now), also told me the grid reference at which I could find an ATV line heading off the track towards the summit, and I assumed that when I'd plotted my route I would have plotted the position of that junction and thus expected that it would be accurately represented on the map on my phone. I now know that I hadn't been so accurate. So it came to pass that I turned up hill at the first set of tyre tracks I found (which was further on than where I'd plotted) without checking the grid reference. The ATV line soon ended in a mass or gorse and dead bracken, but when I say 'soon', it was far enough up the hill that going back down to try a different route was not an appealing option, so I bashed through the gorse, then across heather, until I eventually found the right line.  

 

Theoretically I could follow a good line back down to the track, but a poor decision caused more wiggling (with a bit of reascent) around before I finally did the sensible thing and followed the ATV track. I was almost back at the track when Mick phoned to ask if I knew that I was heading in the wrong direction (I always activate live tracking when there's a phone signal where he's parked so he can see where I am), and by the time I had reassured him that it was an intentional deviation, I was almost back at the spot where I'd originally headed up onto the open hillside.

 

All I then needed to do was to trot back down the track, which would have been straightforward if the gates weren't now closed across the farmyard, with some dogs running around. They didn't give me a friendly welcome as I approached, and there was no way I was entering a farmyard with loose working collies. After a bit of a backtrack and having negotiated a few fences (one protected by a hedgerow) I was within paces of the final fence when I heard a tractor. I simultaneously didn't want to be caught with one leg over a fence, and perfectly prepared to defend myself for trespassing in the face of loose dogs on the public right of way. The former was the path of least resistance though, so I launched myself over the wire and breathed a sigh of relief as I landed on the track the other side. 

 

A bit too eventful an end to the final hill of the trip, but it's good to be now over 600 Marilyns, giving a bit of insurance against summits being moved or demoted. 

I was dubious as to whether this was the ATV track I was looking for and should have trusted my 'this doesn't seem right' instincts. 

Summit selfie, as always.

The correct track, that I followed on the way down. 
 

Tuesday 13 January - Rhiw Gwraidd & Gwastedyn Hill

Rhiw Gwraidd (SO 01610 63437; 441m)

Start Point: By end of track to the north - good parking available a very short way E along road. 

Distance and Ascent: 6.75km, 300m

Weather: Light rain for most of ascent, then dry and increasing hints of brightness.

 

 

 

The weather conditions were probably ideal for this sort of hill, which is to say that if you're going to have miserable weather with curtailed views, you may as well have them on an unspectacular hill.  

 

The initial walk-in was on a track, and at the point that I've marked as '1' on the map snippet above, there was a clear trodden line heading off into the forest, on the line of the public footpath shown on the map, and I gave a few moments thought as to following it. However, I wanted to see if I could head up the west side of the forest, so I continued along the track to the first switchback (marked as '2'), ducking under a few fallen trees on my way. Once there, I waded through some standing water, only to conclude that whilst it looked feasible to get out of the forest, it wouldn't be easy, and thus back to the track I went.  

 

Approaching the E side of the forest (via more fallen trees, one of which was mildly troublesome), it was clear that I could exit the forest to head up the outside edge, as had been my 'if the W side doesn't go' plan. However, just before that point I saw what looked decidedly like a mountain bike trail coming down the hill and decided that if bikes could go that way then so could I. It soon became apparent that it was a dirt bike (as in motorbike) that had been that way, and I followed its tyre line until it suddenly disappeared. Then I just headed up a break, which worked out nicely, and I popped out of the trees not far from the summit. 

 

The two summits of this hill are apparently only 7cm different in height, so clearly I had to visit the other one, which was a simple walk (via one open gate and one easily-crossed fence), out of pasture and onto heather-clad ground. 

 

Contemplating now the retracing of my steps around three sides of a square, I decided it would be worth the 50m bash through the forest in order to go the short route. Despite appearances from the map, I only had to negotiate one fence crossing (the top one) with gateways being visible aiming points, and the gates open, on the other two. Getting back into the forest was easy too, with a tree having fallen across the fence, lowering it to 'step over' level. 

 

Predictably, even knowing that I needed to avoid a small waterfall just before I rejoined the forest track, I managed to come out on the wrong side of the stream, but negotiated my way to a point where the drop was only 3 feet or so. I lowered myself down the drop with remarkable inelegance, then with just a repeat of the ducking under fallen trees, it was plain sailing back to my start point. 

 

(I've got quite a track record of 'short cuts make for long delays' and dodgy descent route decisions, but would like to point out, to my future self as much as anything, that they don't always go badly, and this one was definitely worthwhile.) 

 

 

The official summit (the brown lump peaking over the green field on the right of shot is the second summit) 

The lower top (ish. I think I decided it might be a few paces in front and to the right of me, so took a wander around before heading down)

View, with weather improving

A convenient fallen branch lowering the final fence obstacle to 'step over' level. 

 

Gwastedyn Hill (SN 98683 66150; 477m)

Start Point: Where public right of way leaves the road by Pen-y-Ffynnon (no room to park, but Mick stayed in the car and was ready to move if access was needed (which it wasn't))

Distance and Ascent: 2.75km, 220m

Weather: A bit of sunshine and no rain!

 

The dead-end minor road that leads only to the farm at Pen-y-Ffynnon is gated and newly surfaced, giving Mick the feeling that he was driving up someone's driveway. I reassured him that wasn't the case, and also forewarned him that I didn't expect to find anywhere to park, but that I had identified somewhere reasonably local that he could wait. As it went, he decided to wait blocking the track at the start of the path I was taking, and (unusually, I would say, when he's blocking an access) no-one came along needing to go that way. 

Up one field I went, at the top of which a pedestrian gate had me onto access land, where theoretically I could head straight up the hillside, but I was put off by it being a mass of dead bracken, so I headed NE until I found a trod heading uphill. After a stiff pull up, the ground levelled out and the top proved to be unexpectedly pleasant. 

The difference in height between the two tops on this one is 1.4m, and the distance between them such that I thought it worth the effort to visit both - particularly as the lower top looked more striking than the true summit, being home to a large cairn and a fallen beacon. 

A bog was waded on the way there, a fence easily stepped over (a handy tussock on each side combined with a saggy strand of barbed wire), then it was the final up, past the last remaining dregs of last week's snow. 

Once back through the bog that lays between the two tops, to retrace my steps would have required the reascent of the first top, and whilst it was a pretty negligible climb, I thought I may as well take a more direct route. With the help of gravity and the bracken having fallen towards my direction of travel, I didn't have regrets, although my ankles came to protest about so much traversing of a steep slope. 

Google has decided to put the photos for this one in reverse order, and who am I to argue about the sense of this... 

If Mick hadn't been waiting for me on the other side of the hill, it would have made sense to have just walked down to our accommodation in Rhayader, just down yonder. 

The lower, but more interesting top, with the better views.

Last remaining bit of snow after three days of positive temperatures (forecast to be -3 tonight - will it be enough to freeze the ground on tomorrow's hill?)

The actual summit, with the lower summit visible in middle of shot. You can't see the bog separating them from here. 

When I took this snap at the outset to show how the hill was comprehensively covered in bracken, I didn't know that I would return on a line I could draw onto this snap (my ascent route was behind me as I took this). 

Monday 12 January - Pegwn Mawr & Beacon Hill

It's only a couple of weeks since we were last in Wales bagging Marilyns, but with our trip to Spain delayed by a couple of weeks, and with nothing to do at home, I booked us an apartment in Rhayader for a few days and put a few hills on the agenda.

Our departure from home suffered a false start, when I went to program the SatNav only to realise that I'd neither printed, nor made digitally accessible, my plan. I knew which hills we were going to and what my routes would be, and could manage without having the distance/ascent stats written down, but it would be inconvenient to not have a handy list of all the lat/longs of the intended parking places. A few minutes later, with a freshly printed page of information (also sent to my phone), we headed off again, only to get caught behind a bin lorry. Turning around and driving an extra mile, we easily beat it to the next place where it was able to let traffic pass. I'd like to say that the rest of the journey was smooth sailing, but by then the morning traffic had picked up, and finally, at Newtown, we found the A road we needed to take to be closed. Many tiny lanes later, we arrived at my first hill. I thought Mick would join me on this one, but with the wind-driven rain hitting Erica's windscreen, he opted to sit it out.  

Pegwn Mawr (SO 023 812; 586m)

Start Point: Plentiful parking by wind farm office building at Bryn Dadlau (to NE)

Distance and Ascent: 9.3km, 220m

Weather: outward leg: rain windblown directly into my face; return leg: dry at times and with the wind blissfully behind me.

You'll not fail to notice from the map snippet above, that my route took full advantage of windfarm roads, but what you can't perceive from that snippet is that this was the noisiest windfarm I've ever encountered. The turbines are all old and rusting, and some of them were making the noise of a loud siren. That sirening accompanied me for most of the outing. 

There's really nothing else of note to say about this hill. Well, I suppose the fact that there's an ancient cairn on the summit might be of some note, but I'm not sure I'd have even registered it if I hadn't mentioned it in my notes as the summit feature. 

The return leg was speedy, with the benefit of both gravity and a tailwind, and Mick had a cup of tea and a sandwich waiting for me as I stepped through Erica's door. Then it was onwards to the next hill.

 

Beacon Hill (SO 176 767; 547m)

Start Point: Road to the west - unsatisfactory parking with current snow/mud conditions on the verges. 

Distance and Ascent: 5.7km, 170m

Weather: Really heavy rain as I set out, then showers.

I'd hoped that the closure of the A road wouldn't affect our journey between hills, but after a few miles of driving (during which time we'd passed no sign telling us the road was closed ahead), and only a mile short of the minor road we needed to take, we were turned back and had to take a circuitous route around. We also learnt during that detour that if we'd ignored the signs that had us detouring earlier, we could have reached the first hill via the most expedient route. Turned out that some trees had come down in the storm at the end of last week and were still being cleared. 

The rain was really coming down as we arrived at this hill. I didn't delay my departure in the hope that it would pass, but did don two waterproof jackets. Unsurprisingly, Mick laughed when I asked if he was coming along.

In a drier time of year, this would be a really easy hill, with a good grassy track the whole way to the summit, but today it was made trickier by the lower reaches being slip-slidey mud, and further up the track being still covered in snow (most of which I was easily able to avoid - one bit of which saw me stay on my feet after an impressively long slide). 

Having taken my summit selfie, I wandered over to the other nearby lump, even though it looked significnatly lower, purely because I read the wrong line of my notes, which told me to visit both summits on one of tomorrow's hills. Then I was on my way back down, with rain coming and going and the single patch of blue sky refusing to cast the sun upon me. 

Incidentally, when I planned this trip last Friday, the weather forecast for today was good!

 

Monday 29 December - Moel-ddu & Moel Hebog

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: 

 

600th Marilyn summit selfie

Bit of rime ice up there!

Atop Moel-ddu, with cloud still stubbornly clinging to Moel Hebog behind me. 

Taken as I set out, with the choppiness of the llyn evidencing that the forecast <10mph wind was overly optimistic. I was, however, optimistic that the cloud would lift from Moel Hebog (the lump on the left ... the one under the cloud). 

Sunday 28 December - Gyrn Ddu (SH 401 467; 522m)

Weather: Glorious, but icy out of the sun

Start Point: service road (section of old road), immediately opposite start of footpath at SH 385 467

Distance and ascent: 6km, 480m

 

I think that, ignoring for a moment the issue of the summit, this was the most enjoyable outing of the 9 hills thus far on this trip. I'd not invited Mick to come with me on the basis that I didn't think it would be his cup of tea, but with hindsight he would have enjoyed coming as far as the point that I left the public footpath and struck off across access land.

A zig-zagging track had taken me up to the ruins of several mining buildings, then to three abandoned farmhouses, one in ruins, the others empty but still boasting roofs and windows. 

It was by the first of those farmhouses that I initially set out up the hill, but I'd not got far when I contemplated further my surroundings and read again the notes I'd made, whereupon I did an about turn to continue a little further along the right of way. A gate then took me onto the access land, and to a hole through the next wall.  

That landed me in a field with the choice of a vast network of sheep trods through gorse. For a while, all went well with my choices at forks, until the trod I was on petered out. The going wasn't overly hard, just prickly with some sections of boulders thrown in. 

Those boulders were, however, nothing compared to the huge heap of the things that forms the summit. My snap below doesn't do justice to the scale. Even though I had read that it was bouldery, and had put an emboldened comment on my notes not to do this one in wet conditions or low cloud, it was still something of a surprise to see what lay ahead of me. 

Extreme care was taken in clambering up to the top, and even then some surprisingly large boulders moved under me. 

My thought of dropping off the summit to the W was abandoned quickly, when I found how icy the boulders were on that side, and I picked my way back down the east side. There's actually a good strip of heathery earth that covers the boulders for some distance, so the amount of clambering required isn't quite as much as it looks from a distance (although there are still some surprising holes in amongst the heather). 

In the latter stages of my ascent to the big jumble of rocks, I'd come across a trodden line, so I followed it on the way down. It was less direct, but smooth and largely free of gorse obstructions. It felt like it would be a matter of extreme chance to stumble upon it, and continue to follow it, on the way uphill - particularly as it joined a much more obvious and eroded trod towards the bottom end (route hint: find your way to SH 39779 46442 and it's probably pretty easy to follow heading uphill from there).

The temperature plummeted again once I got onto the shady side of the hill, with the ground still frozen solid.

For ease of logistics, I only had two hills on the agenda for today, and I did one of them yesterday, so I was all done in time to take Mick out for lunch. 

Incidentally, that was my 598th Marilyn...

This is where I decided I'd turned uphill at least one wall too soon, but before I retreated I took a quick snap of the pleasing view.

I don't think this snap really conveys the scale of that mound of boulders.

Summit view 

I do like a good and obvious 'the path is this way' indication when crossing a field, and this one was just that.
 

 

Saturday 27 December - 6 Lleyn Peninsula Marilyns

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)

Start Point: Gateway at SH 30448 33213 - there's plenty of waiting space opposite

Distance and ascent:  0.8km, 70m 

There are two approaches to hills that aren't on access land and aren't served by public rights of way or permissive paths: consent or stealth/forgiveness. I made this my first hill of the day, arriving just as it became light enough to see without a torch, and went for the latter approach.

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!

  

 Quick snap of sunrise as I set out up the field, before Mick even has the engine off

Summit selfie, and view to the north

Mynydd Anelog (SH 15198 27222, 191m)

Start Point: Rough parking area in front of chapel at SH 155 263

Distance and Ascent: 2.3km, 130m

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.) 

 

This one was another an easy walk - although if you look carefully at my recorded route you'll see that I initially overshot the not-overly-obvious turn up to the top - and an excellent viewpoint of a summit. 

 

Summit view
  

As above but with me in the way

 

View down to the coast path

On the approach, and from a different angle, I'd pondered whether it was a heron or some sort of a gull, sitting on something I couldn't see. Turned out it was a bag caught on a fence!

 

We had a brief pause in Aberdaron on our way to the next hill, in the same car park that was the scene of Mick & I losing each other in September 2014. Mobile signal is still poor there! 

 

Mynydd Rhiw (SH 228 293; 305m)

Start Point: At road end to the SW

Distance and Ascent: 2km, 65m

I thought Mick might join me on this one, but he declined on the basis of not being suitably dressed and on the further basis of it being warm and comfortable in Erica but cold outside. I couldn't disagree with his assessment, as to this point each hill had been colder than the one before (it wasn't 10am yet). 

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. 

The hood wasn't just for warmth - the wind was trying to whip my cap off.

Carn Fadryn (SH 278 351; 371m)

Start Point: parking area to the NW of the old chapel in Garnfadryn.

Distance and Ascent: 2.4km, 195m

 

On the way up, at a fork, I opted for the more attacking route, which I came to regret as it became a narrow trod through heather. I took the main path on the way back.

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. 

  

Sea behind me in that direction...

...and sea behind me in this direction too.

Garn Boduan (SH 312 393; 280m)

Start Point: car park on E side of Nefyn at SH 308 404.

Distance and Ascent: 3.5km, 240m

 

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. 

Chilly ascent!
 

The second pimple from the left would be my final hill of the day

 Yr Eifl (SH 365 447; 560m)

Start Point: large car park to the SW

Distance and ascent: 3.6km, 290m

 

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.