Mapping Mountains – Trimble Surveys – Brandy Hill

01.08.18  Mountain Park (SN 171 120)

Mountain Park (SN 171 120)

The delights of easily bagged summits that are near conveniently placed roads with parking space, and for the lower heighted hills those with access through near gates, can be viewed as little gems giving road side ticks when only a minute or two are required to park, step out on to terra-firma, walk down the road through the gate and stomp around a bit in a relatively flat field until ones conscious dictates that the highest point has probably been walked over.  Many hill baggers have probably done this during their visits to many varied summits, the worth of such an endeavour is debatable, but it is extremely convenient and affords a number of summits to be visited when ticks a-plenty can be gathered, and to a large extent this is what Suzanne and I were doing today, however it also had the element of a road trip added in for fun, and it proved interesting as my bagging colleague did not know what a Munro was, let alone a Marilyn, Hump or Tump, for me this was enlightening and Suzanne’s view of the day was not hindered by any form of bagging notion, she was out for a good day, and so was I.

Our fifth hill of the day is given the rather eloquent name of Mountain Park on the Tithe map for the field where its summit is situated, and this is the name this hill is now listed by in the 200m Twmpau.

I parked in a small lay-by near the entrance track to a covered reservoir having driven a Google car on this road two nights previous.  As we sauntered across the road to an access gate a tractor chugged its way in to the opposing field trimming its boundary hedge, I thought about making place-name enquiries but as we now had limited time before heading back to Caerfyrddin (Carmarthen) where Ben; Suzanne’s youngest son was waiting for us, I decided that a quick visit and survey of the summit was the order of the day.

I’d previously analysed this hill’s summit via LIDAR and came prepared with a ten figure grid reference for its high point, Suzanne chuckled away behind me as I marched this way and that, forever playing a merry dance until the Trimble zeroed in to the high point, once at the summit I set the Trimble up atop my rucksack, measured the offset between its internal antenna and the ground below, waited for the 0.1m accuracy level to be attained before data should be logged, and once this was achieved I pressed ‘Log’ and joined Suzanne who was flat out in the field relaxing.

Gathering data at the summit of Mountain Park

Our conversation whizzed along and when I next looked at my watch 11 minutes of data were gathered, so I quickly pressed ‘Done’, closed the equipment down, packed it away and off we went toward our last hill of the day; Castell Meherin (SN 146 117).

Survey Result:

Mountain Park (significant name change)

Summit Height:  203.7m (converted to OSGM15)

Summit Grid Reference:  SN 17181 12029

Bwlch Height:  173.5m (LIDAR)

Bwlch Grid Reference:  SN 15693 11421 (LIDAR)

Drop:  30.3m (Trimble summit and LIDAR bwlch) (200m Sub-Twmpau reclassified to 200m Twmpau)

Dominance:  14.85% (Trimble summit and LIDAR bwlch)

For further details please consult the Trimble Survey Spreadsheet