Mapping Mountains – Hill Reclassifications – Y Pellennig – The Remotest Hills of Wales

Graig Fach (SN 821 930) - Pellennig deletion

There has been a deletion of a hill from the list of Y Pellennig – The Remotest Hills of Wales, due to a survey with the Trimble GeoXH 6000.  The hill is situated in the Pumlumon group in northern mid Wales and is situated between the towns of Machynlleth to its north-west and Llanidloes to its south-east with the mountain lakes of Glaslyn to its north and Bugeilyn to its south.

The name of the hill is Graig Fach and it was surveyed over two days; 5^th May 2016 and 22nd February 2019, both in beautiful early morning sunshine.  The hill can be easily accessed from the north via the track that leaves a minor road toward the lake of Glaslyn, or alternatively a longer approach to the hill is from the south-west following the path above the course of the Afon Hengwm. 

Graig Fach has a 514m summit spot height and bwlch contouring between 490m – 500m with a 499m spot height appearing on the Ordnance Survey enlarged mapping on the Geograph website, this latter spot height is positioned on the track and interpolation suggests that it is not positioned where the critical bwlch is situated.

The bwlch consists of moor grass and heather and two data sets were taken on both days,  whilst the summit consists of a small rock and grassy knoll with five data sets taken in all from the area of the summit, resulting in the hill only having 14.7m of drop and therefore below the 15m minimum drop value required to qualify for this list.  This hill is a loss to the Pellennig listing as it is one that must be seldom visited and affords good views across to the expanse of wilderness situated around Llechwedd Crin and Banc Bugeilyn.

This now brings the overall total for Y Pellennig to 167 hills for the Complete list (All Wales), with the total for the Mainland Wales list also decreasing by one to 123 hills.  The Master List will be duly updated on the Mapping Mountains site.

The full details for the hill are:

Cardinal Hill:  Foel Fadian

Summit Height:  513.5m (converted to OSGM15)

Name:  Graig Fach

OS 1:50,000 map:  135, 136

Summit Grid Reference:  SN 82117 93069

Drop:  14.7m (converted to OSGM15)

The list of additions and deletions in the Pellennig list since the 1^st edition of Y Pellennig – The Remotest Hills ills of wales of Wales was published by Europeaklist is as follows:

ADDITIONS

Pen Diban (SH 112 205)

Ynys Arw (SH 266 945)

DELETIONS

Graig Fach (SN 821 930)

Graig Fach (SN 821 930) now deleted from the Y Pellennig list

For details on the survey that deleted this hill from Pellennig status.

Myrddyn Phillips and Aled Williams (May 2016)