22.04.15 Waun Camddwr
(SH 848 207) and Pt. 779m (SH 836 194), only bwlch surveyed
Graham approaching one of the twin summits of Waun Camddwr (SH 848 207) with Aran Fawddwy in the background |
Twenty six years ago John and Anne Nuttall had their guide to the Welsh 2,000ft mountains published by Cicerone. This book would become essential to any prospective completer of these mountains, within the book were listed 181 hills that met the minimum 15m of drop qualification.
Six years later and Dewi
Jones surveyed a top just to the north of Cnicht in the Moelwynion with an
ingeniously adapted walking staff; he concluded that this top should also be in
the Nuttalls list. This hill was later
line surveyed by Harold Morris and Tudur Owain as having 65ft (19.8m) of drop.
A year or so later and I
was fortunate to meet Dewi in the car park at Bwlch y Groes, as we chatted I
spotted the Nuttalls guide in the boot of his car, he soon told me about this
as yet confirmed new top and the way that he had surveyed it. I found what Dewi had done fascinating; this
coincidental encounter had ignited a spark in me, and one that is yet to be
dimmed.
Within a few weeks I had
manufactured a simple measuring staff and noted a multitude of points (single
ring contours at or above 610m in height) and proceeded to spend the next 15
months measuring over 160 of them. This
was during 1998 and the early part of 1999, through these surveys and ones
conducted by Dewi another six new tops were discovered, bringing the total upto
188.
Two hills remained of
interest; Castell y Gwynt and Fronllwyd, both are in the Glyderau and both had
been surveyed as having over the required 15m of drop to qualify for John and
Anne’s list. However, they had also
surveyed these two hills and concluded that they had less that the requited 15m
of drop. In time both would be
accurately surveyed and enter the Nuttalls list. With these two additions the overall number
of new hills added to this list and whose qualification was instigated by a
basic levelling survey was now set at nine.
One of these hills is Waun Camddwr in the Aran. I last surveyed this hill in January 1999 as
having 53ft (16.15m) of drop. The hill
has three potential points vying for the highest, two are rocky and near one
another, whilst the third is separated and comprises moorland, I surveyed the
moorland summit as a teense higher than the rocky summits.
Having joined John and
Graham in pursuit of fun and accuracy as part of G&J Surveys, and having
now got a Trimble, enables all of these hills to be more accurately surveyed,
hopefully all will in time.
We hadn’t surveyed a
marginal Nuttall for almost a year and the time was due to get out onto the
hill and see if one of these ‘new Nuttalls’ stood up to a line survey and a
GNSS survey. The hill we picked was Waun
Camddwr.
We met in the car part
toward the end of Cwm Cywarch, conditions for the day on the hill were forecast
to be good, albeit it with a brisk easterly breeze. As I set off with the tripod strapped to my
75 litre rucksack the crags of Craig Cywarch loomed overhead with an intense blue
sky above.
Craig Cywarch from the upper part of Cwm Cywarch |
John and Graham set off a few minutes after me, but soon caught up as we followed the green path beside the dulled and crisp bracken up toward the high cwm which would give us access to the bwlch between Waun Camddwr and its much higher south-westerly neighbour.
Looking down Cwm Cywarch with John and Graham quickly approaching |
The path towards the bwlch is good with a solid footbridge crossed about a third of the way up. In the upper part of the cwm the ground steepens and the path weaves its way through small patches of broken ground. By now John had pressed his motorised button and was disappearing off into the distance and I slowly followed with Graham in between.
The path ascends steeply up the cwm to the low point on the horizon on the left of the photo |
Once beyond the connecting bwlch a path next to a fence can be followed with a series of wooden boards laid over intervening bog. As John and Graham approached the first option for the summit of Waun Camddwr the blue sky towered all around with the bulk of Aran Fawddwy dominating the background view.
Approaching the first of the rocky summits |
As I arrived beside the two rocky summits the wind blew and soon we had all put on extra layers of clothing. The first thing to do was ascertain which of the two rocky summits is the higher, this was done with the level and staff with the conclusion being that the more north-easterly is 30cm higher than the south-westerly. The lower rocky summit has a small cairn on it; both are separated by an intervening fence which forms a T-junction with the ridge fence and where a ladder stile is situated. The higher of these two rocky summits does not possess a separate 620m ring contour on the 1:25,000 Ordnance Survey maps. However, their enlarged mapping available on the Geograph website includes the same contouring but the fence line is correctly positioned.
Taking a reading from one rocky summit to the other |
John had previously Abneyed these rocky summits and using the level and staff confirmed his previous survey, it also confirmed what John and Anne concluded ‘Head down north-west along the line of the old fence to rejoin the path which is boggy in places, but helpful planks of wood cross the worst bits. Follow the fence left to this new top, which is on the left, just before the next fence junction. Nagged by Myrddyn to go and have another look at this summit, we found the rocky knoll rises by 16m, though the OS have overlooked it and omitted an encircling 620m contour’. I nagged them as this hill had appeared in their ‘Deleted Tops’ list with an estimated 12m of drop. Sometimes persistence pays dividends. The detail in their guide was written before the Ordnance Survey enlarged map on the Geograph website became publicly available.
We now set the level up
to look over toward the moorland top where Graham had walked to and positioned
the staff on a couple of points. Roles
were then reversed with Graham at the optics and John with the staff on the
moorland summit. The conclusion was that
the highest of the two rocky summits was higher than the moorland top by about
27cm.
Graham with the staff on the moorland summit |
Roles now reversed and Graham looks through the level toward John with the staff on the moorland summit |
Our next port of call was this hill’s critical bwlch which lay between it and Aran Fawddwy. Once there it brought back memories of when I was pottering around these and many other hills with my old measuring staff, I hadn’t investigated this bwlch for 16 years and my memory was of a heathery land with a slime infested boggy pool next to where the bwlch lay. The land hadn’t changed much in the intervening years and considering the territory hereabouts the point of the critical bwlch was easily identified as a slight rise in a heathery gulley that fed down to the infant Camddwr to our south and into the boggy bog bog to our north.
As the Leica GS15 collected
data from the critical bwlch we had some eats and I took data from an elevated
rock with the Trimble which we had taken a measurement offset to, so we could
compare the Leica data set to that of the Trimble. Once all complete we started the line survey.
The Trimble gathering data on a rock near the Leica GS15 which is positioned in the heathery gully at the critical bwlch |
Graham and John with the Leica GS15 at the bwlch of Waun Camddwr |
We hadn’t done a line survey as a threesome for a long time and it was good to have the opportunity to do one as the sun baked down. John operated the level, I held and positioned the staff and Graham noted the figures. We headed toward the wooden boards as this gave easier access. Slowly we made progress until roughly level with where the moorland top is positioned and over the fence we climbed and proceeded to survey upto the highest point.
Graham doing the sums as we make progress with the line survey |
Many years ago when I identified this moorland top as the higher of the three I had wedged the remains of a truncated fence post into the peat near to its summit, I looked for this when we arrived at its top, it had been 15 years since my last visit and the truncated fence post has long disappeared.
We took readings to a
number of potential high points and found a large boulder to be the highest; we
left a yellow flag beside it, as we had done with our starting position at the
bwlch.
A few minutes later and
we had line surveyed from the moorland summit over to the highest of the rocky
summits. Calculator in hand the sums
were now done with a rather surprising result; the moorland summit was 5mm
higher than the rocky summit! This was
unexpected as we had looked through the optics between the two summits when we
had first arrived and measured a difference of approximately 27cm. We checked the height difference between
where the level had been placed for its last reading and the top of the rocky
summit, this came to 7cm. John then
walked back with staff in hand to the moorland summit and Graham looked through
the optics and said that the reading was 8cm, I looked and said 7cm, split the
difference and it matched the 5mm difference we had obtained from the line
survey. We soon realised that when the
initial reading had been taken to the moorland summit we had not identified the
highest point and had instead just positioned the staff on a couple of points
to get the general lay of the land in comparison to the highest of the two
rocky summits.
On our way from the moorland summit to the higher of the two rocky summits |
As the two summits were so close in height we decided to do another line survey back from the rocky summit to the moorland summit, once this was done the sums were added up and we now made the rocky summit the higher by 2mm, hee, hee!!!!
I’m not an expert on the
technical aspects of the technologies being used, but these readings basically
told us that we could not split what summit is the highest, so we now have a
twin Nuttall top, the first time this has happened, I love stuff like this!
As John retrieved the
yellow flag at the bwlch I positioned the Trimble on the rock at the summit of
the moorland top for five minutes of data, we then positioned the Leica GS15
over the summit. After a number of
compulsory summit photographs I left John and Graham at the moorland summit and
scampered off to get Trimble data at the rocky summit and then continued down
to the connecting bwlch with the hill that the Ordnance Survey have the name of
Glascwn emblazoned across its summit.
Gathering data with the Trimble from the top of the moorland summit |
Graham and John beside the level at the moorland summit |
John and Graham beside the Leica GS15 at the top of the moorland summit |
Gathering data with the Trimble from the top of the rocky summit |
The connecting bwlch comprised a large dried up bog, I placed the Trimble at its southerly end which to my eye looked higher than its northerly end, collected five minutes of data and waited for John and Graham.
Gathering data at the bwlch of Pt. 779m |
All that remained was for Graham to puzzle over the 4mm and 2mm readings and for us to reverse our steep inward route back to the cars in the valley below. A very fulfilling and enjoyable day on the hill and a great twin Nuttall result – YYIIIPPPEEEEEE!!!!!!!!
Descending our inward route back to the valley below |
Survey Result:
Waun Camddwr
Summit Height (moorland
summit): 621.6m (converted to OSGM15, Trimble) 621.7m (converted to OSGM15, Leica
GS15)
Summit Height (rocky
summit): 621.5m (converted to OSGM15, Trimble) 621.7m (converted to OSGM15, Leica
GS15)
Summit Grid Reference (moorland
summit): SH 84828 20709
Summit Grid Reference (rocky
summit): SH 84726 20550
Bwlch Height: 606.1m (converted to OSGM15, Trimble) 606.3m (converted to OSGM15, Leica GS15)
Bwlch Grid Reference: SH 85069 20707
Drop: 15.5m (Trimble) 15.4m (Leica GS15) 15.5m
(Line Survey) (Nuttall and Uchaf status confirmed)
Dominance: 2.48%
Dominance: 2.48%
Pt. 779m
Summit Height: 779m (levelled height)
Summit Grid Reference: SH 83677 19459 (hand-held GPS via DoBIH)
Bwlch Height: 564.1m (converted to OSGM15)
Summit Grid Reference: SH 83677 19459 (hand-held GPS via DoBIH)
Bwlch Height: 564.1m (converted to OSGM15)
Bwlch Grid Reference: SH 84139 19997
Drop: 215m
Dominance: 27.60%
Dominance: 27.60%
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