19.11.25 Gorn Hill (SN 968 844)
 |
| Gorn Hill (SN 968 844) |
I’d only visited Gorn
Hill once before in January 2003 and a second visit was long overdue, especially
as Eryl and I had mentioned this hill for a small walk on a number of occasions
over recent years and today with fairly settled weather, albeit with a chilled
easterly breeze, proved as good a day as any to meet and venture forth to the
Gorn. We also had the advantage of Rita
offering to drop us off at the top of the road which leads to the footpath for
the usual ascent of the hill.
A few breeze blown
sleety drops of rain skidded across the sky as we started our walk from the top
of the road following the lane leading to Gorn Farm. These were being blown in on an easterly
breeze and the hills adjoined to Pegwn Mawr that from our vantage point were
now behind us, were adorned with the first snows of winter with their prominent
wind turbines marching across their upper ridge.
 |
| Dusting of snow on the Pegwn Mawr hills |
There’s a beauty to
fields and the patterns they create, even those that are now just greened and
not meadowed. Their boundaries create these
patterns across the land, with hedges standing out compared to those that are
just fenced. From where we now were, the
foreground of these patch-worked fields all emerald green in low early winter
light fed the eye toward distant gently rising hills, some with a dusting of snow
crowning their tops. Overhead a Red Kite
majestically played in the breeze, its bronzed colour standing out as flashes
of sunlight caught its wing tips. It felt
good to be out.
 |
| Patch-worked fields |
The footpath led past
Gorn Farm where a small herd of black cattle met us in a field. They ran this way and that, keeping their
distance but always inquisitive. Flashes
of sunlight added depth to the landscape, accentuating the smooth curved
contours of near fields, with snow-capped hills adding perspective of height to
the scene. Away to our north the
pyramidal profile of Moel y Golfa and the Breiddin stood out on the horizon,
with green fields and speckled patches of white sheep as foreground. Even relatively low heighted hills can give
excellent views and especially so in winter light.
 |
| The distant Breiddin on the right |
From this approach it’s
an easy route to the summit of Gorn Hill with good signposting and gates
indicating the way. The high point is
close to the public footpath, and easy to reach. The summit has two options vying for high
point, with LIDAR confirming the highest.
For me this was another day without taking summit data with the Trimble,
which is becoming the norm, this is partly due to the inordinate amount of time
that even one data set can incur and having previously LIDARed the hill, this
would suffice for its numerical data.
 |
| Eryl heading toward the summit of Gorn Hill |
I soon joined Eryl on the
summit having used the Trimble as a hand-help GPS device to indicate what field
the summit was in and then what out of the two options the high point of the
hill was. We stayed on top for a while,
taking a number of photos and chatting.
It was good to be out on a hill with Eryl, something that has been
neglected for a number of years.
 |
| The summit of Gorn Hill |
From the summit we
backtracked to the gate that had given us access into the high field and joined
up with the public footpath heading down the hill toward the easterly realms of
Llanidloes. Our continued route down was
now on a steepening field and as we lost height the town was edged in sunlight nestled
in its low lying plain and formed a perfect foreground with distant snow-capped
hills beyond.
 |
| Looking down on Llanidloes |
We stopped on a number
of occasions on our decent, and chatted about all manner of things, many of
times now gone and those distant hills never to be visited again. This is one of the customs of increasing age
where memory fulfills what was once expectation.
Our route took us onto
the Gorn Lane and from here it was only a left turn and a minute or so’s walk
to where Eryl and Rita live. A cup of
tea and delicious meal was soon on the table; a perfect end to a very
fulfilling couple of hours on the hill.
Survey Result:
Gorn Hill
Summit Height: 326.4m (LIDAR)
Summit Grid Reference: SN 96895 84496 (LIDAR) (summit relocation)
Bwlch Height: 278.1m (LIDAR)
Bwlch Grid Reference: SN 97747 83851 & SN 97747 83848
(LIDAR)
Drop: 48.3m (LIDAR)
Dominance: 14.80% (LIDAR)
For further details please consult the Trimble Survey Spreadsheet
%20-%20LIDAR%20hill%201.jpg)
%20-%201%2025000.jpg)
%20-%20LIDAR%20summit%204.jpg)
%20-%20DataMapWales.jpg)