Mapping Mountains – Trimble Surveys – Y Berwyn

26.10.15  Wriddiog (SJ 186 426)  

Wriddiog (SJ 186 426)

Picking which hill to visit is sometimes like the act of hoovering; as they can be bagged one by one with the area covered slowly expanding outward, until all available hills have been neatly hoovered up.  For me, one hill remained near to the A5 road next to Llangollen, I’d often looked up at this hill as I traveled west to the higher hills of Eryri, but until today I had not visited, and the opportunity to do so presented itself this morning with a suggestion of a 2.30pm appointment at the Corn Mill in Llangollen for afternoon coffee and tea.  This gave me just enough time beforehand to bag and Trimble the hill.

The hill is listed as Pen-y-Vivod in the original Welsh 300m P30 list on Geoff Crowder’s v-g.me website, but this is the name of a house to the south of the summit, and it is now listed as Wriddiog, with this name documented on the Ordnance Survey Draft Surveyors map, the Ordnance Survey One-Inch 'Old Series' map and online sources.

There is adequate parking at the base of the hill just off the busy A5 as it swings westward; this is conveniently next to where a public footpath climbs the steep brackened slopes toward this hill’s critical bwlch.

As I left the car I peered skyward at a graying view where the summits of the higher hills were cloud skimmed, all around was a multitude of autumnal colour with dulled browns mixed with yellows and orange, but with no direct sunlight to accentuate these wonderful colours, the scene remained one of still beauty.

Autumnal colours with the higher Moel y Gamelin hills skimmed with cloud

I marched up the steep path as the breeze increased in strength and followed the fence line northward toward the summit; to my left was the conifer plantation that swamps this hill’s northern and western slopes.  A vehicle track on the upper hillside led toward the high point of the hill. 

Once at the summit I set the Trimble on top of my rucksack, to give it elevation and an increased chance of logging into the required satellites for data collection quicker than if it was placed on the ground beside the ridge fence which crosses the summit of this hill.  However, the breeze was too strong and the Trimble persistently wobbled when on top of the rucksack, so I put it on the ground and hoped that its 0.1m accuracy level before data should be logged would be achieved before my legs started to get cold.  Thankfully it only took a couple of minutes before I pressed ‘Log’ and as it gathered its allotted five minutes of data I waited down slope and peered out in to the increasing gloom.

Gathering data at the summit of Wriddiog

Packing the Trimble away I headed back down the hill and found its critical bwlch to be positioned in a field close to the house named Pen-y-Vivod.  As it gathered data I hoped no one would appear from the house and ask what on earth I was doing, thankfully no one did, and once data were gathered I visited the house to make place-name enquiries.  Unfortunately no one was in, so I re-joined my inward route and sauntered back to my car, changed, and headed into Llangollen and the delights of the Corn Mill and my afternoon appointment.

Gathering data at the critical bwlch of Wriddiog

Survey Result:

Wriddiog (significant name change)

Summit Height:  336.2m (converted to OSGM15)

Summit Grid Reference:  SJ 18662 42685

Bwlch Height:  273.9m (converted to OSGM15)

Bwlch Grid Reference:  SJ 18628 42292

Drop:  62.3m

Dominance:  18.53%

For further details please consult the Trimble survey spreadsheet click {here}