23.05.18 Ynys Gyffylog (SH 629 138)
 |
| The wooded summit of Ynys Gyffylog (SH 629 138) |
Having visited some of
the higher hills in the Cadair Idris range and with beautiful sun drenched
weather continuing in to the early afternoon, I thought I’d re-visit the area
surrounding the Arthog Bog and see if I could get to the top of another one of
its landlocked islands.
I’d recently visited
Fegla Fawr and Fegla Fach, both of which are the main and higher landlocked
islands in this compact area, with many of these small islands wooded and rocky
in nature, and the one I chose for this afternoon’s little adventure proved a
rough place to visit and full of unsavoury undergrowth.
I parked adjacent to a
row of terraced houses and set the Trimble on top of my car roof to log in to
satellite reception, doing so would give me a ten figure grid reference to
follow when on the summit area and compare to that produced by having LIDARed
the hill, if indeed I made it to the summit, as what I could see of the hill
looked particularly dense in foliage.
As I set off aiming for
the most northerly of the terraced row of houses where I hoped a track would
give me access to the hill, a man appeared walking his dog from the side of the
most southerly of the houses, I smiled and said hello and asked if he was local
and if so, did he know of a path leading up the wooded lump at the back of the
houses, he saved the day and kindly took me to the side of his house where he
directed me up steps to what he described as a path of sorts that would lead
via his blue barrowed potatoes and discarded tyres and a mound of bramble and
trees toward two sets of stone steps to the wilderness above. If not for this kind gesture I doubt I would
have found a way to the top.
 |
| The path starts at the front of the car on the left |
 |
| The path heads up toward the blue barrel on the left and makes its way past the barrels on the right |
The path crept past his
potatoes and a mound of foliage above the backyards of the terraced houses
toward a wooden hand rail and stone flagged steps leading steeply upward to a
second set of steps that were hardly distinguishable from the undergrowth
surrounding them, these led to the brackened and tree infested upper part of
the hill.
 |
| Spot the path |
 |
| Looking back at the blue barreled potatoes |
 |
| The hand rail indicates the way upward |
As I popped out on the
summit ridge which could hardly be seen due to thick undergrowth the sun blazed
from above, a radiant blue sky cast down warmth. I stumbled my way through bracken trying to
get to the high point which was immersed in bramble, bracken and gorse with
trees obstructing any direct upward view, I thought the chances of satellite
reception for the Trimble was slim.
 |
| The summit ridge |
I spent a few minutes
stamping down as much foliage as I could before setting the Trimble atop my
rucksack, measuring the offset between its internal antenna and the ground
below and then started what I thought would be a very long wait until the 0.1m
accuracy level before data should be logged was attained, miraculously I only
had to wait about five minutes and suddenly the magical 0.1m mark appeared on
the screen and I pressed ‘Log’ and disappeared in to the foliage to wait for
the allotted data to be stored.
 |
| Gathering data at the summit of Ynys Gyffylog |
I let the Trimble gather
16 minutes of data and stood in the sun with hardly a view due to the trees,
but I felt content and more than happy that the Trimble was performing well and
had attained its accuracy level incredibly quickly considering where it was
placed. During the wait for data
collection I stamped a path back to where I had popped out on the summit ridge
and made sure I remembered where this place was as the last thing I wanted was
an alternative route back down to safety below.
Once sixteen minutes of data
were gathered I switched the equipment off, packed the Trimble away and
retraced my route back down the stone steps and along the narrow path beside
the discarded tyres and barrowed potatoes.
Survey Result:
Ynys Gyffylog
Summit Height: 23.1m (converted to OSGM15)
Summit Grid Reference: SH 62964 13848
Bwlch Height: 2.4m (LIDAR)
Bwlch Grid Reference: SH 63071 13758 (LIDAR)
Drop: 20.6m (Trimble summit and LIDAR bwlch) (Double Sub-Twmpau addition confirmed)
Dominance: 89.42%
No comments:
Post a Comment