13.05.15 Fedw Lwyd
(SH 804 093), Mynydd Coch (SH 804 099) and Mynydd Tri Arglwydd (SH 812
093)
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| Fedw Lwyd (SH 804 093) |
As we sorted the last of
our gear out and laced up our boots the predicted blue skies and warmth had not
pervaded this part of Wales just yet.
Before setting off I wondered about putting on my thin one skin summer
walking jacket as there was still an early morning chill in the air. However, Graham wasn’t in doubt and was
decked out in Paramo jacket and gaiters, the latter would certainly come in
handy for our planned last summit of the day, as we were heading up toward hills
above the small community of Aberllefenni and our last planned hill was Moel Heulen,
which according to all maps and first-hand accounts of its ascent; is embedded
in a thick conifer plantation.
We parked on a large
slated area at SH 776 100 and walked down to join a delightful path that led to
a footbridge which crossed the Afon Dulas, this river passes through Aberllefenni
as it spills over rocks, forming inviting summer pools before continuing down
to its joining with the Afon Dyfi and the merging with the sea.
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| Crossing the Afon Dulas |
Our ascent led through a
beautiful deciduous wood on a good narrow path that gained height above the
infant river as the grey sky tried turning to white and blue. As we broke out of the wood onto fields and
soon to be hillsides the view to our west opened out and gave us the first view
of Cadair Idris. It would only be from
higher on these hills that the view of its elongated ridge taking in Mynydd
Moel and Gau Graig would be on show, but its presence dominated the western
horizon as it grew above the forested tops leading away from our current
position.
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Through the wood
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| Emerging out of the wood and Cadair Idris started to dominate the view to the west |
Beyond the wood we
joined a green track that merged to become one of rock and gravel, as this
gained height it passed the remains of Esgair-neiriau, which is now a forgotten
farm house, which in its time was quite substantial. Its southern façade is still intact, although
dilapidated, but from the north its roof is missing and its innards are open to
the elements. It sits tranquilly next to
a pool that doesn’t appear on older maps, rather forlornly it stands, a
testament to times gone by when this place was lived in and no doubt gave a
family a home and shelter from these hills.
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Mynydd Coch above Cwm Celli
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Inside its main room
still stands its robust fire place with its timbered ceiling now fallen and
open. I gazed at its outer shell for a
number of minutes, partly to regain my breath from our ascent through the wood,
but also to look and try and take in its surroundings whilst wondering who it
was that lived here and how did they lead their lives.
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| The old farm house of Esgair-neiriau |
As we gained height
above the old farm house of Esgair-neiriau the green grazing fields slowly
turned to heath and moor and the views across Cwm Celli on our left were to the
high point of our day; Mynydd Coch, which stood with its trig pillar above the
surrounding conifers as they marched regimentally up its hillsides.
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The view of Cadair Idris from the approach to Fedw Lwyd
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Our first hill to survey
is listed as a Sub-Pedwar, its name if Fedw Lwyd. It was once listed as a Tump and given c 31m
of drop but was deleted from this list when the Ordnance Survey enlarged
Geograph map was found to have a 399m spot height at the bwlch, giving the hill
only 25m of drop.
When we reached its
summit Graham set about Abneying between two points to find the highest, once
completed, the Trimble was placed on the ground and gathered its customary five
minutes of data.
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Gathering data at the summit of Fedw Lwyd
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As the Trimble gathered
data I looked toward Mynydd Tri Arglwydd, which was to be our third hill of the
day, between us and it was the upper reaches of Cwm Coeg and a drop of about
150m on easy gradiented land.
Penetrating this upper cwm was a track, one of many that we saw on these
hills which give the farmer on quad bike and hill walker access to their grazing
flock and the hills respectively.
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Mynydd Tri Arglwydd from Fedw Lwyd
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| Mynydd Coch from Fedw Lwyd |
Once summit data were
collected we arrived at the area of the bwlch for Fedw Lwyd which is beside the
track that made its way up toward the summit of Mynydd Coch. Another five minutes of data were collected
from here before we headed steeply uphill toward the trig
pillar.
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Gathering data at the bwlch area of Fedw Lwyd
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By now the blanket of
high grey cloud had started to break up and whites and blues were emerging as
we walked up toward the trig pillar, and as I set the Trimble up the sun came
out and bathed us in its warmth.
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Approaching the summit of Mynydd Coch
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Gathering data at the summit of Mynydd Coch
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| The elevated summit area of Mynydd Coch with a ditch and part of the natural embankment on the right of photo |
Mynydd Coch has an
unusual summit area as it resembles an ancient hill fort with two distinct
embankments and ditches and a large central elevated area which has the modern
day trig at its top. However, the
embankments are made of natural rock and I cannot find any evidence that this
is in fact an ancient structure.
Whatever the outcome, be it ancient hill fort or not, the summit area is
beautifully shaped and the view is excellent with the Pumlumon range, Cadair
Idris, the Aran and many other hills on grand display.
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Fedw Lwyd from Mynydd Coch
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We followed a path from
the summit of Mynydd Coch down to very steep ground which gave access onto the
area of the bwlch for our next hill; Mynydd Tri Arglwydd. According to maps this bwlch has two
possibilities for its position with the one nearest the summit of Mynydd Coch
being the more likely for its critical bwlch.
As we walked down toward it this is what we also visually thought, deciding
to leave the bwlch survey until after its summit survey we continued to its
high point.
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Approaching the summit of Mynydd Tri Arglwydd
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The summit of Mynydd Tri
Arglwydd consists of heather with a rogue spruce tree edging its way toward it
with its lower trunk being about four metres from the highest point. The Trimble was set up on its improvised
tripod and obtained the 0.1m accuracy before data can be logged relatively
quickly considering it had a tree trying to interfere with its satellite
coverage.
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Gathering data at the summit of Mynydd Tri Arglwydd
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Mynydd Coch from Mynydd Tri Arglwydd
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Once summit data were
gathered we retraced our steps down to the connecting bwlch and gathered data
from its two positions, with the one, now farthest from the summit of Mynydd Tri
Arglwydd, being our favoured one for the critical bwlch position.
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Gathering data at the critical bwlch of Mynydd Tri Arglwydd
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This part of the walk
gave excellent views toward the eastern side of Fedw Lwyd and the south-western
upper sides of Mynydd Coch, with the gently sloped western aspect of Mynydd Tri
Arglwydd cascading down into Cwm Coeg, with the reclaimed green pasture edging
upward to meet the moorland above.
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Mynydd Tri Arglwydd from its critical bwlch
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The survey of the
critical bwlch of Mynydd Tri Arglwydd was likely to be the last of the day, so
the Trimble was packed away and we joined a good path that cut across the slope
of Mynydd Coch to rejoin with its connecting bwlch to Fedw Lwyd, we bi-passed
the latter on a sheep track and rejoined our inward route and descended toward
the entrance into part of the sprawling Dyfi Forest.
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Mynydd Coch from our descent toward the entrance into the Dyfi Forest
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As we stood beside the
gate at this entrance to the forest we calculated the time it would take to
walk to and hopefully bash our way through the trees to the summit of Mynydd Heulen
(SH 776 081) and walk back. We decided
that unless the tree bashing proved easier than we envisaged that this part of
the walk was likely to be no more than a scouting expedition for a later
ascent.
I’d done a bit of ground
work the previous evening and come well prepared with a number of ten figure
grid references for where forest tracks joined the one we were now on, where
forest tracks then diverged from the one we were now on, and more importantly
the ones that Anton Ciritis had documented when he visited the summit of Moel
Heulen.
As we walked further
into the forest on a good, broad forest track the hill rose up in front of us,
it was completely swamped in conifers and seemed impenetrable. We had a choice, either to attempt to tackle
the hill from its north or its south, Anton came up from its south having
driven to its base on a forest track.
Running parallel with the forest track is a cycle track, one of many in
these hills for off-roaders. This cycle
track would lead to the point where Anton entered the conifer plantation to
bash his way up toward a forest break and eventually the summit.
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On the forest track with the conifered summit of Moel Heulen ahead of us
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We found the cycle track
and walked on it back the way we had just come to explore if there was any path
entering the conifers toward the summit, there was none. We then walked on the cycle track parallel
with the continuation of our route on the forest track. We’d been in warm sunshine ever since leaving
the last bwlch survey and it was pleasant to now be on a narrow path amongst
dappled light as butterflies flew past us and bird song rang out, a gentleness
that was all too soon to disappear as we neared the point where Anton had
entered the trees.
It seemed that this
point was also where a large number of particularly uninviting gorse bushes had
staked their claim; we tried farther back on the cycle track and decided that there
was a slight glimmer of an entrance somewhere there, where the thick conifer
plantation was only semi-thick!!
Slowly we edged our way
upward, I don’t think Graham or I had any expectation that we would reach the
summit of Moel Heulen today as time dictated that unless we stumbled upon the
fire break that leads to this hill’s summit, we would have to come back another
day for the joy of this hill’s ascent.
However, slow progress
was being made as we ducked into and through the dead lower branches of a multitude of fir trees, we soon found a
greener section which consisted of dead gorse, we followed this up for a few
minutes before delving left through more dead branches. Sunlight tantalisingly penetrated some of the
trees and upward progress could definitely be made, although at a cost, as by
now we were covered in tree stuff and Graham rather laughingly described my
head as looking like a ‘bird’s nest’.
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Graham at our high point in the trees
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Deciding that our
scouting mission had given us inkling toward what the ascent was like and where
we would have to enter the forest for further upward progress to be made, we
decided that it was time to head back out of the trees and down to the inward
forest track. Before doing so Graham
took a ten figure grid reference so we could at least see on the map where we
had reached.
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Screen grab from the Ordnance Survey enlarged Geograph map with the blue circle indicating where we entered the trees and the green circle indicating our high point
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Once back on the track
we spent ten minutes getting twigs out of our gear and clothes before heading back
to the gate at the forest entrance, which gave access onto the track and open
hillsides of greenery and views.
On our way down we stopped
next to the old farm house for me to take a few more photos, framing Mynydd
Coch against the waters of the pond. The
route back through the deciduous wood was as delightful as the ascent had been.
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Mynydd Coch from beside the pool next to Esgair-neiriau
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As we walked the last
few metres through the wood the houses of Aberllefenni came into view through
the newly sprung greenery of fresh leaves, and we were all too soon back at the
foot bridge over the Afon Dulas and heading up the short ascent to the awaiting
car.
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Heading toward the descent through the wood
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Last view of Cadair Idris before entering the wood
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Crossing the Afon Dulas
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It had been another
excellent day on the hill, investigating a part of Wales that I had not been to
before, with the added bonus of a tree bash and the delicious prospect of
having to re-visit the conifered slopes of Moel Heulen to claim an ascent of
its summit.
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The track of our walk
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Postscript:
Since surveying these hills full LIDAR coverage is now
available. The LIDAR (Light Detection & Ranging) technique
produced highly accurate height and positional data that is now freely
available for England and Wales. Consequently the numerical details
for these hills have been analysed using this technique, and where appropriate
LIDAR has been used in preference to that produced by the Trimble.
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| LIDAR image of Fedw Lwyd (SH 804 093) |
Survey Result:
Fedw Lwyd
Summit Height: 424.5m (converted to OSGM15, Trimble GeoXH 6000)
Summit Grid Reference: SH 80491 09399 (Trimble GeoXH 6000)
Bwlch Height: 398.7m (LIDAR)
Bwlch Grid Reference: SH 80548 09589 (LIDAR)
Drop: 25.7m (Trimble GeoXH 6000 summit and LIDAR bwlch)
Dominance: 6.06% (Trimble GeoXH 6000 summit and LIDAR bwlch)
Summit Height: 468.3m (converted to OSGM15, Trimble GeoXH 6000)
Summit Grid Reference: SH 80458 09952 (Trimble GeoXH 6000)
Bwlch Height: 313.0m (LIDAR)
Bwlch Grid Reference: SH 81012 10795 (LIDAR)
Drop: 155.3m (Trimble GeoXH 6000 summit and LIDAR bwlch)
Dominance: 33.15% (Trimble GeoXH 6000 summit and LIDAR bwlch) (Lesser Dominant deletion)
Mynydd Tri Arglwydd
Summit Height: 442.3m (converted to OSGM15)
Summit Grid Reference: SH 81228 09376
Bwlch Height: 398.9m (converted to OSGM15)
Bwlch Grid Reference: SH 80826 09777
Drop: 43.3m
Dominance: 9.80%
For further details please
consult the Trimble survey spreadsheet click {here}
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