Over the mountains.

Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
Having been released back into the community, I decided to venture into the mountains today, for several reasons.

Doing it today would avoid going there over a holiday weekend.
I had obtained suitable trail food on last night's Lidl trip.
It will, at some point, actually rain again and I would be regretting not having taken advantage of the current dryness.

I found that the forestry road had been resurfaced, though the white-lining hadn't been done yet.

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I found a water feature that made a most agreeable burbling sound.

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I was concerned that the recent months of restricted movements might have led to the trail becoming difficult to follow, after the 'real' road ended and it was very noticeable that the path was almost reabsorbed into the general surroundings. There were no human footprints in the muddy sections at all. However, my finely honed tracking skills enabled me to find a sign, at around the 1,200 foot mark, that someone had been along there at some point in the past year or so.

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Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
A bit further on, I found a memorial to a monocled mountaineer - presumably he had died nearby.

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Then I began to be glad that I had taken a half litre of water with me - seeing just how dry the remains of the winter vegetation were.

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Should a conflagration have occurred, I could douse myself with water and sprint through the flames.
 

Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
I reached the lake - grateful that it was also a fairly calm day - it's not a place to be, if there is a prospect of windiness, I think.

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I had my Mediterranean-style tuna wraps on the lakeside terrace, with more than adequate distancing - probably no humans within a mile.

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I then ventured to the summit of the ridge, a hundred metres or so away - this is the county boundary, so I could go no further at the current restriction level - not that there is much over there.

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Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
On the way down, I noticed this habitation. The entrances are most of a metre high - I suspect bears, possibly wolves.

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Nearby, I found evidence that the inhabitants are not vegetarian.

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As I got almost back to the car, I met three girls wondering if they were going the right way to get to the lake - I gave them as good a description of the way as I could, and warned them about the carnivorous possibilities, then sent them on their way.

The evening news has had no mention of them being reported missing yet...
 

Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
The road that the car was parked off was the original 'main road' over the hills - there are two other routes, both now also tarmacked, on either side, but they were much harder and more weather-dependent routes in the old days.

The current road follows the old one almost exactly and uses all of the original constructions along the route. These have generally lasted well and continue to serve their purpose well.

There is a large number of culverts taking water under the road. This is a particularly nice example.

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I considered using the subway to cross the road, but there isn't a lot of traffic...

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I noted that nobody has bothered to alter the sign.

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Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
As the 'real climb' started, there was a service area for the horses that did most of the work.

This double gateway was the entrance to it.

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The self service refreshment area is still there.

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There is a quarry accessible from the road, where the trees seem very confident about the solidity of the cliff-edge.

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BobClay

Well-Known Forumite
WOW I like this thread. Anybody know if Stafford Mountain Club are still on the go. My old man was a member and helped with the building of their cottage back in the early 60's and I bunked down in it quite a few times back in the day. Its name is Bryn Hafod, at the top end of the Cwm Cywarch valley (Craig Cowarch.) Not far from the village of Dinas Mawddwy. They were still on the go when I took this pix in 2015, the cottage looking in good nick.
At the back of the cottage, through that pass you can just see, is a route to Aran Fawddwy and a view of the Cader Idris range to the west.

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The view of the Cader Idris range. So you can see the cottage is well placed. Good pub in Dinas Mawddwy where Stafford Mountain Club used to hang out.
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BobClay

Well-Known Forumite
Watched the video of the building of the hut. Epic job. I visited with my Old Man while I was still at school, about 62/63 on a building weekend. My Old Man was a self employed window cleaner and donated a few old ladders to them. I think they were working on the roof at the time. I've got some old pix of that time somewhere, I'll have to dig them out.
A lot of the original members worked at the English Electric and my Old Man used to get lift out on some weekends with a guy who owned an Austin Westminster. He drove very fast and I can remember my Dad telling me he was more scared in that car than he was climbing the crag above the cottage.
Staying at the cottage after it was finished was pretty epic, big long bunk dormitories. At that time they had electrical power from an 'on demand' generator situated in a hut outside. Big improvement from sleeping in tent down on the common below the hut.
 

Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
It being a Friday, with a promise of wet weather to come, I took the opportunity to nip up to the hills again.

I went up to The Cut, as mentioned in the first post on here, to find that the name-board has been replaced by one with a more standardised font, although the original form is still there on the information boards.

I parked on the south side of The Cut itself and walked through it, in order to locate the stone where the chaps who dug it in the 1840s had recorded their efforts.

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A few hundred yards down the hill, there is a slightly less venerable culvert, with its history recorded less neatly.

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And a little further on, an even younger memorial - to a forestry worker.

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Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
From there, my route went off along a forestry road.

Pretty much the only non-avian life around was tadpoles.

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They seemed to be quite happy in the ditches at the sides of the road, fed by many precipitous streams.

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There was certainly no shortage of tadpoles.

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Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
My target was a small waterfall, but the lack of human activity in the area for the last eighteen months made finding it a difficult task.

The 'path' to it was not visible at all. On the basis that the stream was likely to be in the base of the valley, I did eventually reach it and it was nice enough.

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Whether I was above or below the target point there, I couldn't be sure, but the water levels after the driest April on record may have made it less spectacular than usual, if I had found it.

I managed to climb up a little from that confluence and record it from above.

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The terrain that I had to contend with was very difficult. This was the best 'path' that I could discern.

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It took about an hour and a half to go about a third of a mile - it was necessary to be very careful - to avoid falls, breakages and the risk of being impaled.
 
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