Saturday 28 July 2018

Mapping Mountains – Trimble Surveys – Y Berwyn



21.05.18  Cefn Coch (SH 868 142) and Seven Valleys (SH 874 151)

Seven Valleys (SH 874 151)

Extending southward on the western side of Cwm Cewydd is a small ridge whose two hills I’d looked at on many an occasion when studying Ordnance Survey maps, and until today they had passed me by.  This ridge is a delight, it is a quiet place, and today in the early morning bathed in the first rays of sunshine under a blue sky with gentle bird song echoing across the land and the call of a cuckoo flirting across the cwm, there could be few better places to be.

I’d never driven up this valley but had looked across it from higher hills to the east, the road is narrow and there are occasional houses, with the paved section ending high up the cwm where there is sufficient parking for two or three cars and a track that continues to the hill ridge.

My route to the hills was down the road I had just driven up to a lane that headed steeply up toward the bwlch between the two hills I planned on visiting.  Across the Nant Cwm Cewydd blues merged with greens as the delicate bluebell cast its spell with fields aglow and coloured a wistful blue.

Beautiful Bluebells

Seasonal change is one of the delights of living in these wonderful isles of ours and the month of May is one of the best, as it is time for new growth after winter’s harsh climes, and today the unfurling of ferns brightened by early sun sprinkled themselves against the Welsh Poppy, and all had a backdrop of woods pungent with the scent of a myriad of bluebells, scattered as a carpet of blue and dashed up the hillside.

New growth

The paved lane led to an earthen track and a gate giving access to the steep grazing field making up the summit of my first hill of the day; Cefn Coch.  On the way to its high point I grappled with a poor lamb that was stuck between a tree and wired fence with its head firmly lodged through one of the square openings of the fence and its rear legs and body curled against the tree, there was blood seeping out of its eye and the lower fence post was red, I managed to drag its head out of the wire fence and held its coat in my grasp dangling it in mid-air as I tugged the fence toward me, by doing so freeing its rear legs and body, I then pulled it upward and over the fence and stood it on the grass beside me, it sauntered off without a backward glance looking for its mother.

The way to the hill

As the lamb sauntered off I headed for the summit which was relatively easy to pinpoint, and as the Trimble gathered its allotted data I stood and listened to a tractor in the adjacent field turning the earth for seeding, and once five minutes of data were stored and the Trimble packed away I headed down to see if I could ask the person operating the tractor about the names of these hills.

The high Aran

Gathering data at the summit of Cefn Coch

Ieuan Davies stopped the tractor and smiled and I explained my interest in the hills and their names, one of the names that Ieuan gave me I thought a little unusual as it was English; this name is Seven Valleys and it related to one of these hills and was a reference to its view, the position of the hill in question was confirmed an hour or so later after I had surveyed the intervening bwlch.

Ieuan Davies

It was good to meet Ieuan and as with many of these chance meetings on the hill with locals who work the land, he was only too willing to impart his knowledge and do so in a friendly manner, I waved goodbye and headed back down the steep slope to the connecting bwlch which was on a narrow earthen track under the cover of trees, I had little hope that the Trimble would achieve its 0.1m accuracy level before data should be logged, but having waited ten minutes for it to do so the magic number of 0.1m appeared on its screen and I pressed ‘Log’ and headed down the track to allow it as good a coverage of orbiting satellites as possible.

Gathering data at the critical bwlch of Cefn Coch

During the wait at the bwlch I listened to the buzz of a quad bike rounding sheep up from the higher slopes of my next hill, as the earthen track was carved in to the hillside my eye was level with the lower part of a wired fence and as the distant beep emanated from the Trimble as each datum point was collected the call of the farmer on the quad bike echoed across the land.  The sheep were rounded up from the top of the near hill as farmer and sheep dog worked in unison, encouraging the sheep down the hill, with their bleating now cascading across the land.  I let the Trimble gather ten minutes of data and just stood and listened to the hub of countryside sound as quad bike and driven sheep merged down the hillside.

My view whilst waiting for the Trimble to gather its allotted data at the bwlch of Cefn Coch

By the time I packed the Trimble away the farmer and sheep dog had collected their prize and great swamps of sheep were being penned outside the ruin of Bwlch Cwm-cewydd.  I waited until all the sheep were safely penned and then chatted at length with Carwyn Pugh, he confirmed that the second hill on my walk is the one known locally as the Seven Valleys and that although he spoke Welsh, as did Ieuan, the hill is known locally by its English name.

Carwyn Pugh busy at work

Before Carwyn headed off on his quad bike he explained that the sheep had been gathered so the lambs could be marked, and as the quad bike whizzed back up the hill I spent a few minutes framing the multitude of sheep and took a series of photos, their coloured markings standing out against their white fluffed bodies.

Sheep

Penned

It was an easy stroll up to the next and last summit, this hill now has a thin strip of conifer plantation obstructing the view that it gets its name from, and however apt such a name as Seven Valleys is, it still sounds a little odd for an English name to be used by Welsh speakers for a hill situated in the heartland of Welsh speaking Wales.

Cefn Coch from the ascent of Seven Valleys

The summit of Seven Valleys is crowned by a steep grassy knoll which has two quartz rocks at its high point, and as the Trimble gathered data I tried my utmost to count the valleys and name each in turn.

Gathering data at the summit of Seven Valleys

It was only a short walk down to the connecting bwlch and again this was Trimbled, I then headed the short distance down the earthen track leading back to the end of the paved lane and my car.



Survey Result:


Cefn Coch

Summit Height:  313.0m (converted to OSGM15)

Summit Grid Reference:  SH 86836 14261

Bwlch Height:  252.8m (converted to OSGM15)

Bwlch Grid Reference:  SH 87054 14525

Drop:  60.2m

Dominance:  19.23%






Summit Height:  340.5m (converted to OSGM15)

Summit Grid Reference:  SH 87419 15168

Bwlch Height:  287.8m (converted to OSGM15)

Bwlch Grid Reference:  SH 87978 15488

Drop:  52.7m

Dominance:  15.48%








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