Weather: Cool, with quite a wind chill, but gloriously sunny.
Moel y Dyniewyd (SH 61269 47739; 382m)
Start Point: Aberglaslyn National Trust Car Park (£4 per day)
Distance and Ascent: 6.4km, 425m
An early start and a long drive saw us arrive in the car park at Aberglaslyn at 1040, at which time it was about half empty. Fifteen minutes later it was full and we saw dozens of people out on the Cwm Bychan path (at one point I counted 22 within sight ahead of us). Curiously, once we turned off the main path towards our summit, we saw not a single person until we regained that path. (Once back in the car park, we looked at the information board and surmised that everyone else was doing a circuit via Cwm Bychan and Beddgelert, returning at low level along the river ... and as I type that I feel sure that I've done that route myself in the past, at least once).
You may note that I said 'we', as Mick, having initially declined to join me, suddenly decided, as I was getting ready, that he would come along after all. Maybe he was swayed by the number of people around - if they all thought this was a good walk, he wouldn't want to miss out.
It was a very pleasant walk too, with excellent clear views, most notably across to the snowy summit of Snowdon.
Turning off the main path, a trodden line took us up the N side of a fenceline up to our summit.
The going uphill had been easy enough. Mick found the descent a bit trickier with the rocky sections being harder in descent, particularly with the low sun hampering vision of where we were putting our feet.
Many more people were greeted on our way back down to the car park, where we arrived just a little over two hours after we'd left. Thinking the next hill on the agenda for today could take a similar length of time, that left us with an hour to have some lunch and a cup of tea, and to drive there, if I was to get down in daylight (I should maybe clarify that we'd not set out promptly when we arrived in the car park at 1040; somehow we faffed for the best part of 40 minutes).
Moel y Gest (SH 54927 38894; 263m)
Distance and ascent: 3.7km, 250m
I'd noted two possible ways up this hill, being confident that the longer option (skirting to the S of the hill) would be fine, but being less confident about the shorter option, using a path shown on Open Source Mapping, but that wasn't readily visible on aerial photos. As evidenced by my recorded line, shown in the map snippet above, the shorter option worked just fine.
I hopped over the first gate (padlocked) on the left after the start of the access land, followed a grassy track up for a short distance, before then cutting the ensuing switchbacks by taking a faint trod up the hill. A combination of trods and ATV lines then took me all the way to the top, where I encountered eight people.
The wind was now much gustier than it had been on the first summit of the day (and the chill even chillier), so care was taken as I stood atop the summit rock, then on another nearby rock that looked like it might be a similar height.
With steps retraced, plus the extra little bit along the pavement to the layby, I was back within an hour of setting off - a much easier outing than expected.
The hood was to keep the hat from blowing away.
