Rob Woodall Completes
the Welsh Mainland Tumps
18.02.18 Pared y Cefn Hir (SH 661 148, only bwlch Trimbled), Ffridd Bellau Nant y Gwyrddail (SH 665 139, previously Trimbled) and
Ffridd Las (SH 660 139, previously Trimbled)
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| Ffridd Las (SH 660 139) |
Today was quite a
momentous one in the annals of hill bagging as Rob Woodall completed the Welsh mainland
Tumps, a staggering undertaking with 2,271 hills listed as of the time of
completion.
The hill Rob chose for
this completion remains unnamed on Ordnance Survey maps, and is known as Ffridd
Las by the farmer who grazes sheep on the hill, it is listed as Pen Llynnau
Cregennen in the Tumps.
The farmer who grazes Ffridd
Las lives at the small farm house of Ffridd Boedel, which is situated beside
and directly below the hill to its north-west, and on my way to the lakeside
car park where Rob had suggested we all meet, I called at this house and met
Carys Lloyd. We chatted for a number of
minutes and I explained my interest in upland place-name research, she kindly
suggested I call back nearer lunchtime as her husband; Arwyn, would be in and
could help me.
A few minutes later I
drove in to the lakeside car park adjacent to the double lakes of Llynnau
Cregennan, the day looked fair until early afternoon when light rain was
forecast. This at least was more
favourable when compared to recent weather reports as persistent rain and hill
mist had been forecast for the morning and remainder of the day.
The positioning of
Llynnau Cregennan are beautiful as they sit nestled in the landscape with the
looming profile of Pared y Cefn Hir overlooking to the north-east and the
higher satellite peaks of Cadair Idris to their south-east. But it is Pared y Cefn Hir that stands out,
butted skyward it defies its relatively lowly height. Whilst Ffridd Las is almost inconsequential
in comparison, a grassed domed small hill beside the minor road that skirts the
lakes. However, this is the appealing
factor of the Welsh P30s as they take in small and high hills alike, rock
strewn giants and mere grassed grazing fields, well-trodden paths and seldom
visited places, and it is their variety that encourages investigation.
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| Pared y Cefn Hir and the northerly of the Llynnau Cregennan |
Rob had suggested
extending his walk over Pared y Cefn Hir and its adjacent hill of Bryn Brith,
before visiting Ffridd Bellau Nant y Gwyrddail, followed by his last hill;
Ffridd Las. I decided to bi-pass the
first two hills of the walk and join the festivities on the last two; this
would give me time to visit the small farm house of Ffridd Boedel where I hoped
to meet Arwyn Lloyd and confirm the name of the hill that Rob was finishing on.
As the party set off
toward Pared y Cefn Hir I remained in the car park chatting with Gordon Adshead
who, like me, planned on visiting the last two hills at his leisure. The morning was ideal for such a walk with
the tops clear of clag and a gentle winter light adding substance to the
beautiful landscape.
As Rob and friends began
to get strung out on their way up Pared y Cefn Hir I sauntered down to the
larger and more northerly of the double lakes and watched as a cloud blanket
cascaded over the cliffs of Mynydd Moel, a slow and delicate ebb of morning
mist following the upper contours of the hill.
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| Rob and party heading up Pared y Cefn Hir |
Although I hadn’t
planned on doing so I realised that with time on my hands I could gather a data
set from the critical bwlch of Pared y Cefn Hir, this is positioned at the
outflow of the northern and larger lake.
This position had been surveyed in November 2012 when along with John
Barnard and Graham Jackson we spent two days surveying the summits of Pared y
Cefn Hir and Bryn Brith and three potential positions of the higher of these
two hills connecting bwlch.
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| Gathering data with the Leica GS15 |
As I approached the
outflow I looked up and Rob and friends were just cresting the summit ridge of
Pared y Cefn Hir, I positioned the Trimble on the upper part of the concrete
surround at the outflow to the northern lake, thankfully the concrete surround was
just wide enough for the Trimble to be positioned without any possibility of being
dislodged.
After measuring the
offset between the Trimble’s internal antenna and the gravel and rock at the base
of the water I stood back and waited for it to attain the 0.1m accuracy level
before data should be logged, this was achieved relatively quickly and after
pressing ‘Log’ I wandered away from the equipment’s quiet beeps and happily
contented myself with taking photos across the water to the grassed and curved
profile of Ffridd Las.
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| The bwlch of Pared y Cefn Hir |
Initially I planned on
collecting five minutes of data, but as I had no time constraint I thought ten
minutes would be sufficient. During data
collection a couple walked my way on the narrow minor road, they stopped and we
chatted, by the time they headed off over 20 minutes of data had been gathered,
I then decided that a 30 minute data set would be good!
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| Gathering data at the critical bwlch of Pared y Cefn Hir |
Once data were stored
and the Trimble packed away I walked up the road to Ffridd Boedel where Arwyn
met me in his slippers, after explaining my interest in the names of adjacent
hills he put his boots on and we spent a contented 30 minutes above his farm
talking about the hills, their names, the ffriddoedd and his life as a farmer.
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| Arwyn Lloyd of Ffridd Boedel |
I only left when we
spotted the large party descending Pared y Cefn Hir and taking the path heading
east around the northern shore of the larger lake, realising that they were not
heading up the minor road where I planned on joining them I thanked Arwyn for
his time and then headed toward the summit of Ffridd Bellau Nant y Gwyrddail.
As I approached the
summit of Rob’s penultimate Welsh mainland Tump the strung our party were
rounding the shore of the southerly lake and heading up the south-west flank of
the hill. They were soon on the summit.
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| Approaching the summit of Ffridd Bellau Nant y Gwyrddail |
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| At the summit of Ffridd Bellau Nant y Gwyrddail |
All that remained was
the walk back down from the summit of Ffridd Bellau Nant y Gwyrddail and the
short walk over toward the summit of Ffridd Las, the last hill of many for Rob,
all 2,271 of them!
Rob was greeted at the
summit of Ffridd Las by 14 people with the customary arch of ceremonial walking
poles leading toward the high point of the hill; this was a fitting end to an unprecedented
achievement. We stood and sat beside the
summit sampling a variety of cake toasting Rob’s latest amongst many incredible
achievements.
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| At the summit of Ffridd Las |
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| Rob completes the Welsh mainland Tumps on the summit of Ffridd Las |
Visiting the Welsh P30s
is something that I have enjoyed for many years, their variety seems to have no
bounds, and they have brought me so many enjoyable experiences, with each one
however small in height or grand in stature bringing its own unique charm and ambiance. To have visited them all on the mainland must
be such a fulfilling experience and my congratulations go out to Rob for being
the first person to have done so.
Survey Result:
Pared y Cefn Hir
Summit Grid Reference: SH 66199 14885 (from previous Leica GS15 survey)
Bwlch Height: 233.7m (converted to OSGM15, Trimble GeoXH
6000) 233.7m (converted to OSGM15, Leica
GS15)
Bwlch Grid Reference: SH 65822 14423 (Trimble GeoXH 6000 and previous Leica GS15 survey)
Drop: 149.4m (from previous Leica GS15 survey)
Dominance: 39.00% (from previous Leica GS15 survey)
