UKHillwalking - Chwarel Graig Ddu

 

UKHillwalking Article

UKHillwalking recently published an article on the discovery of a new 2,000ft mountain top in Wales.  The original article and a link to it on the UKHillwalking website appear below.

 

New Welsh Mountain Unearthed

Aled Williams and Myrddyn Phillips

Aled Williams and Myrddyn Phillips are keen hill surveyors and co-authors of summit lists, and frequently contribute to UKHillwalking on the subject. In recent times they have been responsible for a number of significant hill reclassifications, and here they explain their latest find. It's one that may be contentious.

Contains spoil(ers).

Hills come in all shapes and sizes, some high and dramatic with pointed peaks whilst others are lower in height and less defined in profile. However, these differences are not just down to the natural order of landscape where weathering and erosion create change over many millennia - humans have also had a say in things; we also change our landscape. This can include such things as cuttings for rail and road, which change connecting cols between hills, but even the summits of hills can be influenced by our intrusion.  

For countless years we have dug for mineral wealth, this has been heightened since the industrial revolution with coal and slate being two such examples. These mining activities have had a dramatic effect on our landscape, especially so for many hills, and nowhere more so than in Wales.

Chwarel Graig Ddu qualifies as an independent summit

Quarrying has created a wealth of new tops where none existed before. For Wales, there are many such examples, such as Bersham Bank and Pandy Bank close to Wrecsam (Wrexham), both created by waste spoil from mining activity. There are many examples in south Wales; Teisen Priodas and the three summits around Twyn y Waun being just a few. These examples come in two main categories; one where waste spoil creates a large lump of a hill, high enough and with sufficient drop to qualify for a list, and the other where quarrying has taken away a large chunk of hillside creating a new summit with what remains.

Some people view these new tops as artificial and therefore discount them from any form of list. We take a more sympathetic view for our lists and include hills such as these if they are considered solid and stable and meet the set criteria. This at least treats landscape as it is today, otherwise one would be prone to ignore things that undeniably exist, such as cuttings and quarried tops.

Man-made mountains still count, according to Myrddyn and Aled's criteria

The above explanation sets up the contentious aspect of the new 2,000ft peak that has been discovered. The hill has been formed from quarrying and is positioned above Blaenau Ffestiniog in north-west Wales. This area of Wales has been mined extensively for slate and the newly discovered hill is part of the Chwarel Graig Ddu quarry.

We had been aware of this hill's potential for the last two years as online mapping with 5m contouring shows it to have a summit over 610m in height and a drop exceeding 15m. What was needed was a visit to the adjacent hillsides to confirm its existence.

This inspection was carried out in early 2022 and confirmed the existence of the Chwarel Graig Ddu top. Based on online mapping, this top meets the requirement of our Welsh Highlands list, which combines a minimum height of 500m with a minimum drop of 15m and has been extensively written about on the Mapping Mountains. Here are the details of the top:

Chwarel Graig Ddu

• Summit: 613m (SH 725 455)
• Bwlch:  592m (SH 724 457)
• Drop:  21m

And for those who like their Welsh mountain tops to be at and above 2,000ft (609.6m) in height with 15m minimum drop, this hill also qualifies under these criteria. In fact, Chwarel Graig Ddu could well be the last of the Welsh 2,000fters to be discovered.

 

For the original article published on the UKHillwalking website

 

 

BBC Wales News - Chwarel Graig Ddu

BBC Wales News recently published an article on the discovery of a new 2,000ft mountain top in Wales.  The original article and a link to it on the BBC Wales News website appear below.

 

Snowdonia: New mountain created after quarrying - claim

 

Chwarel Graig Ddu is in Graig Ddu quarry, above Blaenau Ffestiniog

An experienced mapmaker claims he has discovered a new mountain in Snowdonia after quarrying created a peak.

 

The mountain in Graig Ddu quarry, above Blaenau Ffestiniog, Gwynedd, was originally part of Manod Mawr North Top.

 

But Myrddyn Phillips said quarrying into the land had created another summit.

 

He believes it is the only man-made peak above 2,000ft in Wales - which means it is a mountain.

 

The experienced mountaineer and mapmaker, from Welshpool, has been mapping peaks for decades and has found other unknown mountains.

 

He said the latest discovery was made by a friend who spotted a noticeable gradient change while looking at a map online.

 

"The online map that shows this new mountain top has proved consistently accurate," said Mr Phillips.

 

"So to confirm the validity of its status we visited adjacent hillsides and determined its height and drop."

 

The new mountain was previously part of Manod Mawr North Top but quarrying has formed a second peak that allows it to qualify as a separate mountain.

 

Mr Phillips has named the new mountain Chwarel Graig Ddu.

 

Mountaineer Myrddyn Phillips discovered the new peak with a friend

The summit remains 613m (2,011ft) but the drop to the next peak is now 21m (69ft), meaning that it qualifies as a separate mountain, according to the Welsh Highlands criteria used by Mr Phillips.

 

"Although there are peaks and tops in Wales that have been created by quarrying and mining activity, to my knowledge this is the first one that's been discovered that's over 2,000ft high," Mr Phillips said.

 

"So it's extremely different to anything else within our country, and it's always good to find mountain tops like this.

 

"It just adds to the numerical accuracy that is then catalogued and put in hill lists."

Mr Phillips acknowledged some might question whether the peak was a real mountain.

 

The new mountain was previously part of Manod Mawr North Top

He said its man-made nature should not count against it as there were other examples in Wales of hills being similarly formed.

 

"However, none of these are over 2,000ft in height as Chwarel Graig Ddu is," he said.

"Some people view these new tops as artificial and therefore discount them from any form of list.

 

"We take a more sympathetic view for our lists and include hills such as these if they are considered solid and stable and meet the set criteria.

 

"Because of man's intrusion these exist, therefore we portray their existence in our hill lists."

 

Mr Phillips previously helped measure Ffordd Pen Llech, in Harlech, in its efforts to become the steepest road in the world. 

 

It was initially awarded the honour by the Guinness World Records, but a rethink less than a year later handed the title back to Baldwin Street in Dunedin, New Zealand.

 

 

 

For the original article published on the BBC Wales News website

  

BBC Cymru Fyw - Chwarel Graig Ddu

BBC Cymru Fyw recently published an article on the discovery of a new 2,000ft mountain top in Wales.  The original article and a link to it on the BBC Cymru Fyw website appear below.

 

 

Darganfod mynydd newydd ‘unigryw’ mewn chwarel yn Eryri

Iolo Cheung
Gohebydd BBC Cymru

 

Mae'r copa newydd yn gorwedd yn Chwarel Graig Ddu uwchben tref Blaenau Ffestiniog 

Mae cerddwr a tirfesurwr profiadol yn dweud ei fod wedi dod o hyd i fynydd newydd yn ardal Blaenau Ffestiniog, Eryri.

 

Cafodd y copa newydd ei asesu gan Myrddyn Phillips a'i ffrind, wedi wedi iddyn nhw sylweddoli arno o edrych ar fapiau topograffeg.

 

Mae'r copa yn gorwedd yn chwarel Graig Ddu uwchben y dref, ac fe gafodd ei greu yn dilyn gwaith ar y safle.

 

Yn ôl Mr Phillips mae'n "unigryw" felly yng Nghymru, fel yr unig gopa dros 2,000 troedfedd sydd wedi'i greu o waith pobl yn hytrach na bod yn un naturiol.

 

Mae Mr Phillips, sy'n byw yn Y Trallwng, yn mapio mynyddoedd ers blynyddoedd, ac wedi ‘darganfod’ sawl copa newydd eisoes wrth wneud.

 

Dywedodd fod y darganfyddiad diweddaraf wedi dod ar ôl i'w ffrind sylwi ar raddiant y mynydd mewn map ar-lein.

 

"Mae'r map ar-lein oedd yn dangos y copa newydd wedi profi'n gywir sawl gwaith, felly fe aethon ni ati i ymweld â bryniau cyfagos ers mwyn cadarnhau ei statws," meddai.

 

Mae Myrddyn Phillips yn dweud bod y copa'n un 'unigryw' fel yr unig un dros 2,000 troedfedd sydd wedi'i greu o waith pobl yn hytrach na bod yn un naturiol

Y gred yw, meddai, fod y copa newydd wedi cael ei ffurfio wedi i waith cloddio yn y chwarel ddyfnhau'r bwlch rhwng brig y chwarel a chopa gogleddol Manod Mawr.

 

Roedd hynny'n golygu bod y copa'n gymwys i gael ei ystyried fel mynydd, gan ei fod yn 613m o uchder a bod y bwlch i'r copa nesaf yn disgyn 21m.

 

Mae felly yn cyrraedd y gofynion sy'n cael eu defnyddio yn rhestr Welsh Highlands ar gyfer mynydd (610m+, disgyniad o 15m+ cyn y copa nesaf) o drwch blewyn.

 

"I raddau mae pob mynydd a bryn yng Nghymru yn unigryw, ond mae rhai yn sefyll allan," meddai.

 

"Er bod nifer o gopaon a thopiau yng Nghymru wedi eu creu gan waith chwareli a chloddio, hyd y gwn i dyma'r cyntaf sydd wedi'i ganfod sydd dros 2,000 troedfedd.

 

"Felly mae'n wahanol iawn i unrhyw beth arall yn y wlad, ac mae wastad yn dda i ddarganfod copaon mynyddoedd fel hyn. Mae'n ychwanegu at ba mor gywir ydi'n rhestrau ni o fryniau."

 

Cafodd gwaith ei wneud Chwarel Graig Ddu a dyna sut ffurfiwyd y copa newydd

Er bod Mr Phillips yn cydnabod fod gan rai pobl ddiffiniad gwahanol, neu gwestiynu a yw'r copa newydd yn edrych fel mynydd 'go iawn', mae'n hapus fod y darganfyddiad newydd yn un dilys.

 

"Dros sawl blwyddyn o gerdded bryniau Cymru dwi wedi canfod fod y disgyniad o 15m+ yn fesuriad sy'n gweithio'n dda ar gyfer [mesur mynyddoedd yn] ucheldiroedd Cymru," meddai.

 

Ychwanegodd bod nifer o esiamplau ar draws Cymru o fryniau newydd yn cael eu creu o waith diwydiannol, ac nad yw hynny'n golygu na ddylen nhw gael eu hystyried.

 

"Ond does dim un o'r rhain dros 2,000 troedfedd fel mae Chwarel Graig Ddu," meddai.

 

"Mae rhai pobl yn gweld y copaon hyn fel rhai artiffisial ac felly'n eu diystyru nhw o unrhyw restrau. Ond rydyn ni'n fwy sympathetig yn ein rhestrau ni ac yn eu cynnwys os ydyn nhw'n gadarn, sefydlog ac yn cwrdd a'r gofynion.

 

"Oherwydd ymyrraeth ddynol maen nhw'n bodoli, felly 'dyn ni'n portreadu eu bodolaeth."

 

Yn ogystal a'i waith ar fynyddoedd, roedd Myrddyn Phillips hefyd yn rhan o ymdrechion I fesur Ffordd Pen Llech yn Harlech er mwyn iddi gael ei chofnodi’n swyddogol fel y stryd fwyaf serth yn y byd.

 

Ond fe barodd y statws hwnnw lain na blwyddyn wedi I’r ffordd wreiddiol, Baldwin Street yn Dunedin, Seland Newydd, ailgipio’r fraint yn 2020.

 

 

 

For the original article published on the BBC Cymru Fyw website 

Grough - Chwarel Graig Ddu

 

Grough Article

Grough recently published an article on the discovery of a new 2,000ft mountain top in Wales.  The original article and a link to it on the Grough website appear below.

Mapping sleuth work uncovers Wales's unlikely 'last 2,000ft mountain'

 

Myrddyn Phillips and Aled Williams
Thursday 05 May 2022 04:45 PM GMT

 

Why do we climb hills and mountains? For some, following George Mallory’s quip ‘because it’s there’ is reason enough. Others love to follow a tick list of peaks to bag, hence the preponderance of hill lists.

And some devote their hillwalking days and map-gazing evenings searching for new additions to lists. Myrddyn Phillips and Aled Williams have been doing just that, and have come up a new contender.

Some may baulk at the new peak’s inclusion and it’s doubtful many will be heading to its summit, for obvious reasons but, unusual though it may be, the pair argue that the 2,000-footer warrants inclusion on hill lists ‘because it’s there’.

Here’s their take on the matter.

The summit of Chwarel Graig Ddu

As with most things in life, what seems a simple matter can become more complicated as detail is examined. The categories of hill classification and what constitutes a summit and also a col is no different. One may imagine that this categorisation is a simple affair. For example, if a hill qualifies under the stipulated minimum height and minimum drop; it then qualifies for the respective list. However, added detail can be all important.

This added detail can include such things as road and rail cuttings that alter heights at connecting cols, or transversely it can include raised roads passing over cols. Summits are also affected. Man has a habit of terra-forming landscapes, and mining and quarrying activity can create all manner of wonderful anomalies for the hill-lister to consider.

Myrddyn Phillips has surveyed many of Britain's mountains

The quarrying activities that terra-form tops take the form of two main categories; the first is when waste spoil from mining creates a large lump of a hill that is high enough with sufficient drop to enter a list. The second is when quarrying activity removes a chunk of hillside leaving a newly created summit. It is this second category that the newly discovered 2,000ft Welsh peak is a part of.

Not everyone is enamoured by these man-made hills. Some people dismiss them but others view them as now being a part of the landscape. Simply put; they exist, so why not portray their existence by including them in a hill list provided the designated criteria are met.

Much numerical data is dependent upon online mapping or Lidar. The latter stands for light detection and ranging. This technique produces highly accurate height data that is now freely available for much of England and Wales. However, Lidar does not cover the whole of the country, including our hill of interest; therefore we were reliant upon online mapping.

Over recent years there has been a great swathe of mapping made available online, including Ordnance Survey-based maps depicting 5m contours for the whole of Great Britain. Crucially, this resource also provides the current-day topography for quarried areas, and it was the study of this mapping that led to the discovery of a new 2,000ft mountain top in Wales.

The newly discovered top is positioned above Blaenau Ffestiniog in north-west Wales and is a part of the Chwarel Graig Ddu quarry. All that was now required was an inspection to confirm the existence of the new hill, which 5m contouring shows to have an uppermost 610m ring contour and col contouring between 590m and 595m.

The pair have examined the hill from neighbouring land

This inspection was carried out in early 2022 and confirmed the existence of the Chwarel Graig Ddu top. The top was inspected from the adjacent hillsides and with a quarry road passing over its high point, it is obviously solid and stable and not just a pile of debris that moves on a daily basis. Here are the details of the top:

Chwarel Graig Ddu

Summit: 613m (SH 725 455)

Bwlch: 592m (SH 724 457)

Drop: 21m

All objective hill lists have set criteria. One that we have extensively written about on the Mapping Mountains site is named The Welsh Highlands; this list has qualifying criteria of a minimum 500m in height and a minimum drop of 15m. As such, we have now included Chwarel Graig Ddu in our Welsh Highlands list and for those people who enjoy their Welsh mountain tops to be at and above 2,000ft (609.6m) in height with 15m minimum drop, this peak also qualifies under these criteria and it could well be the last of the Welsh 2,000-footers to be discovered.

 

 

For the original article published on the Grough website 

 

Mapping Mountains – Hill Reclassifications – 600m Twmpau

Chwarel Graig Ddu (SH 725 455) – 600m Sub-Twmpau addition

There has been an addition to the listing of the 600m Twmpau, with the summit height, bwlch height and their locations, the drop and status of the hill derived from detail on contemporary maps, with confirmation from subsequent LIDAR analysis conducted by Aled Williams. 

Chwarel Graig Ddu (SH 725 455)

The criteria for the list that this addition applies to are:

600m Twmpau – Welsh hills at or above 600m and below 700m in height that have 30m minimum drop, with an accompanying sub category entitled the 600m Sub-Twmpau consisting of all Welsh hills at or above 600m and below 700m in height that have 20m or more and below 30m of drop.  With the word Twmpau being an acronym standing for thirty welsh metre prominences and upward. 

The 600m Twmpau by Myrddyn Phillips

The name the hill is listed by is Chwarel Graig Ddu, and it is adjoined to the Arenig Fach group of hills, which are situated in the north-western part of North Wales (Region A, Sub-Region A2), and it is positioned with the A470 road to its west and the B4391 road to its south, and has the town of Blaenau Ffestiniog towards the west.

When the list that later became known as the 600m Twmpau was first compiled this hill was not included in the accompanying sub list, as because it is a part of a working quarry the contemporary Ordnance Survey 1:50,000 Landranger and 1:25,000 Explorer map do not show any spot heights or contours, therefore the hill seemed not to exist. 

Extract from the Ordnance Survey 1:25,000 Explorer map

Since the original compilation of this list there have been a number of maps made available online.  Some of these are historic such as the series of Six-Inch maps on the National Library of Scotland website.  Whilst others were digitally updated such as the Ordnance Survey Vector Map Local that was hosted on the Geograph website and which was entitled the Interactive Coverage Map, whilst others are current and digitally updated such as the interactive mapping on the Magic Maps and WalkLakes websites.

One of the resources recently available online is the mapping on the OS Maps website.  This is the replacement for OS Get-a-map and until recent times had contours at 5m intervals which were proving consistently more accurate compared to the 5m contours that sometimes appear on the Ordnance Survey 1:25,000 Explorer map and used to appear on the online Vector Map Local.  Although the mapping on the OS Maps website no longer has contours at 5m intervals, such contours are represented on other mapping available online and it was Aled Williams who scrutinised this mapping which has an uppermost 610m ring contour and bwlch contouring between 590m – 595m, with these contours giving this hill a drop value exceeding the minimum 15m to qualify for this list. 

Extract from the online map showing 5m contouring

The hill has subsequently been inspected from adjacent hillsides and its validity confirmed and as a quarry road passes over its summit area it is considered solid and stable.

However, it was not until LIDAR became available that the details for this hill could be accurately re-assessed.  The LIDAR (Light Detection & Ranging) technique produced highly accurate height data that is now freely available for much of England and Wales. 

Therefore, the confirmation of the addition of this hill to 600m Sub-Twmpau status is due to LIDAR analysis, resulting in a 613.3m summit height and a 592.2m bwlch height, with these values giving this hill 21.1m of drop, which is sufficient for it to be classified as a 600m Sub-Twmpau. 

 

The full details for the hill are: 

Group:  Arenig Fach

Name:  Chwarel Graig Ddu

OS 1:50,000 map:  115

Summit Height:  613.3m (LIDAR)

Summit Grid Reference:  SH 72504 45533 (LIDAR)

Bwlch Height:  592.2m (LIDAR)

Bwlch Grid Reference:  SH 72456 45744 (LIDAR)    

Drop:  21.1m (LIDAR)  

 

Myrddyn Phillips (June 2022)