02.04.21 Pt. 522.7m (SH 744 433), Pt. 516.0m (SH 742 433), Y Garnedd (SH 741 431) and
Carreg y Foel Gron (SH 744 427)
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| Carreg y Foel Gron (SH 744 427) |
Between the lockdowns imposed last year, Aled
and I surveyed a number of hills around and including Graig Goch (SH 751 447). This hill is impressive with its westerly
facing crags always a delight to view.
The day proved wonderful with clear blue skies, albeit chilled for much
of the day.
To the south of Graig Goch lies Y Garnedd, these
two hills can be easily combined but surveying necessitates an inordinate
amount of time spent concentrating on one patch of land, therefore when
visiting Graig Goch it was this hill that we concentrated our efforts on and
the survey of Y Garnedd would have to wait for another day. That materialised today and conditions were
remarkably similar to our outing on Graig Goch; with clear blue skies but with
a chilled easterly breeze.
I met Aled in the parking area beside Llyn
Dubach and we soon had the second car parked at the end of the fisherman’s
track, which enabled us to also survey the connecting bwlch between Y Garnedd
and Graig Goch.
The route to this bwlch is simple but can be
rather boggy. We found the critical
point of the bwlch positioned beside a stone wall below an imposing lump of
rock. As the Trimble gathered its
allotted data we caught up with all manner of things, mainly hill related, but as
ever it was good to chat. Email contact
or zoom meetings for those inclined, was a means to keep in contact during the
various Covid lockdowns, but nothing betters face to face contact.
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| Heading toward the bwlch of Y Garnedd |
Between this bwlch and the summit of Y Garnedd
are two lower prominence hills that we wanted to survey. I’d surveyed each with my basic levelling
staff in September 2004, now we had the opportunity to produce far better data and
determine an accurate drop value for each.
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| Pt. 522.7m (SH 744 433) |
The first of these hills is given a 522m summit
spot height on the Magic Maps website and its high point was easy to identify
and consists of rock. As the Trimble
quietly beeped away I scribbled all necessary details in my notebook and after
the allotted data were gathered and stored, I closed the equipment down and
joined Aled as we sauntered the short distance down to its connecting bwlch.
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| Gathering data at the summit of Pt. 522.7m |
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| Gathering data at the bwlch of Pt. 522.7m |
Prior to our visit Aled had assessed the details
for these hills using 5m contouring and produced interpolated ten figure grid
references for each bwlch position, these proved a good indicator for where
these critical points lay and once there we then assessed the lay of land by
eye. The critical bwlch for this first
hill was positioned amongst moor grass close to an unsavoury pool of stagnant
water, which I plunged a boot in to when trying to step across it.
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| Pt. 516.0m (SH 742 433) |
It was only a short distance to the second of
these two lower prominence hills and we found its connecting bwlch to be
positioned on an attractive flat rocky rib, and within a few minutes the
Trimble was set up gathering data.
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| Gathering data at the bwlch of Pt. 516.0m |
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| Gathering data at the summit of Pt. 516.0m |
The summit of this second hill has a wonderful
viewpoint with the crags of Graig Goch and the dappled blue waters of Llynnau
Gamallt on grand display, whilst the bulk of Y Garnedd rose to our south with
its westerly facing cliff looking impressive.
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| Y Garnedd |
Whilst summit data were gathered I sat with Aled
and enjoyed a couple of sandwiches, it was good to be here. The hills are wonderful places, they can be
investigated on solo expeditions or in company, they give individual as well as
shared experience and today these hills were an ideal place to catch up after
many months of lockdown and enjoy their surroundings.
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| Heading up Y Garnedd |
Once the Trimble was packed away I followed Aled
up the steep grassed and broken ground beside the edge of the westerly cliff of
Y Garnedd, stopping occasionally to look back toward Graig Goch. What a place to be, with the higher Eryri
peaks dominating the extended view and unadulterated blue sky stretching in all
directions.
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| Graig Goch and Llynnau Gamallt |
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| Graig Goch |
The high point of Y Garnedd is beside the lower
of two cairns and once the Trimble was set up gathering data I joined Aled in
the near wind shelter and waited for data to be stored. During this we heard the rumbling of a vehicle;
it sounded similar to a quad bike but once the allotted data were gathered and
stored and the Trimble closed down, a 4x4 vehicle suddenly emerged making its
way toward us. This was a surprise to
say the least; I’d rarely seen such a vehicle so high on a Welsh hill before.
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| Gathering data at the summit of Y Garnedd |
I scampered the few metres to say hi to the
driver and he pulled up straight next to the summit. We spent about ten minutes chatting with Tom
Ashman and his friend, they’d come from Penmachno and Tom said that he’d driven
to this summit a few times before. I
took a number of photos as the vehicle looked so unusual parked beside the
summit.
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| An unexpected visitor |
We left Tom and his friend at the top of the
hill and followed the vehicle track down toward the access track that makes its
way to the disused Foel Gron Quarry; this gave us our onward route to the last
summit and survey of the walk.
Carreg y Foel Gron is an unusual hill as its
connecting bwlch with Y Garnedd is relatively flat. The flat part of this bwlch is due to waste
spoil from the old quarry and therefore is not natural. The natural bwlch is now buried under who
knows how many metres of waste spoil.
Dotted across the bwlch are large boulders, a single one being prominent
whilst others are grouped together.
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| Approaching Carreg y Foel Gron |
As the summit of this hill is given a small uppermost
500m ring contour and bwlch contouring between 470m – 480m on contemporary
Ordnance Surveys maps it was a candidate for Dewey status many years ago. Therefore, armed with my old basic levelling
staff I surveyed this hill for drop, resulting in a value of 86ft / 26.2m. This was in June 2000; and in April 2008 John
Barnard and Graham Jackson line surveyed this hill, resulting in 26.52m of
drop. These measurements were taken from
the flat bedded connecting bwlch and not natural ground at its base; however
John and Graham also took measurements from this area and proved that the drop
value for the hill cannot exceed 29.4m.
Today we wanted to give the hill an accurate summit height.
Aled arrived at the summit first and directed me
to where the Trimble should be positioned.
It was soon set up gathering its all-important data; during this we sat,
rested, chatted and enjoyed the view. Once
the Trimble was packed away we retraced our inward route back to the bwlch and
continued down the old quarry track to the paved road and my awaiting car parked
beside Llyn Dubach.
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| The Trimble set-up position at the summit of Carreg y Foel Gron |
I then drove the short distance up the road and then
the rutted fisherman’s track to collect Aled’s car. Leaving Aled to get his walking boots off, I
waved my goodbye’s and headed east for another small walk taking in Garth Goch
(SH 952 357) and Garth Rhiwaedog (SH 950 349) which are positioned to the east
of Y Bala.
Survey Result:
Pt. 522.7m
Summit Height: 522.7m (converted to OSGM15)
Summit Grid Reference: SH 74459 43396
Bwlch Height: 508.8m (converted to OSGM15)
Bwlch Grid Reference: SH 74498 43304
Drop: 13.9m
Dominance: 2.66%
Pt. 516.0m
Summit Height: 516.0m (converted to OSGM15)
Summit Grid Reference: SH 74296 43367
Bwlch Height: 504.4m (converted to OSGM15)
Bwlch Grid Reference: SH 74371 43318
Drop: 11.6m
Dominance: 2.24%
Y Garnedd
Summit Height: 552.9m (converted to OSGM15)
Summit Grid Reference: SH 74199 43111
Bwlch Height: 475.2m (converted to OSGM15)
Bwlch Grid Reference: SH 74780 43642
Drop: 77.6m
Dominance: 14.04%
Carreg y Foel Gron
Summit Height: 500.7m (converted to OSGM15, Trimble GeoXH
6000)
Summit Grid Reference: SH 74464 42764 (Trimble GeoXH 6000)
Bwlch Height: 471.3m (relative to Trimble GeoXH 6000 summit
and line survey drop)
Bwlch Grid Reference: SH 74591 42833 (hand-held GPS via survey)
Drop: 29.4m (line survey with natural bwlch under
landfill)
Dominance: 5.87% (Trimble GeoXH
6000 summit and line survey drop)
For further details please consult the Trimble Survey Spreadsheet
