Mapping Mountains – Trimble Surveys – Moel y Gamelin

18.12.19  Mynydd Du (SJ 214 571)  

Driving north toward Wrexham I wondered what I was doing, as clagged grey hung deeply across the countryside with chilled frost adding beauty to an otherwise enclosed scene.  I was hoping to visit four P30s over three walks, ending close to Mold where a short drive in my car would take me to Mark’s house for our onward journey to Beddgelert to meet Aled for an early evening pre-Christmas meal.

There was a beautiful crisp blue sky and vivid colour yesterday, and yet today was diametrically opposite.  However, as I turned north-westward toward the base of my first hill of the day the clag was not as thick as that around Welshpool, which made navigation easier, although wandering to the top of a relatively high field is never the most difficult.

Having parked to the south of the hill beside a church I followed a public footpath up in to the gloom.  It was good to be out, slowly immersing myself in ethereal mist and chilled air with frost edged patches clinging to the dulled green of winter.

The path led past a pool enclosed by stunted trees, I stopped and looked out on to a quiet scene.  Just a breath of breeze stirred the trees; this increased in strength as I gained height to open land, but only blew stronger later in the day on my last hill.

A misted and chilled scene

The path led me to the upper field where murky silhouettes of grazing cattle would ebb in and out of view.  The high point was close to where I crested the upper broad ridge and near to the remains of a collapsed stone wall.

The summit point was easy to identify and within a few minutes I had placed the Trimble atop my rucksack, measured the offset between its internal antenna and the ground below, and once the 0.1m accuracy level was attained before data should be logged, activated it to gather data.

Gathering data at the summit of Mynydd Du

By this time the one or two murky silhouettes of distant cattle had turned in to a small herd who sometimes stood and watched and other times frisked their way this way and that, a seemingly playful bunch.

Once data were gathered and stored, I closed the equipment down, packed it away and left the summit reversing my inward route back past the pool and down to my car.  A fine start to the morning’s bagging. 

Survey Result:

Mynydd Du 

Summit Height:  379.5m (converted to OSGM15, Trimble GeoXH 6000)

Summit Grid Reference:  SJ 21470 57139 (Trimble GeoXH 6000)

Bwlch Height:  c 342m (interpolation)

Bwlch Grid Reference:  SJ 21266 57457 (interpolation)

Drop:  c 37m (Trimble GeoXH 6000 summit and interpolated bwlch)

Dominance:  9.87% (Trimble GeoXH 6000 summit and interpolated bwlch)

For further details please consult the Trimble Survey Spreadsheet