c2c-clocaenog-cabin-exterior
-
- Above Trefriw, looking back to Llanrwst.
-
- Further above Trefriw, I’d gained height very quickly puffing up the very steep road.
-
- I am actually now in downtown Bangor.
-
- Walk uphill out of Bangor city centre and turn left up this little lane. Keep walking for ten miles and you’re on the summit of Carnedd Llewelyn!
-
- First view of Bangor. Nice and sunny now!
-
- Beaumaris, sunny as ever!
-
- It’s a long stony pull up to the top. A sudden sea view, over to Porthmadog I suppose, and some weather incoming.
-
- Let’s just get the heck off this mountain, shall we? There’ll be hot coffee at Bangor.
-
- Sensibly back into shelter
-
- Looking back at the Carnedd Llewelyn Sheraton.
-
- Suddenly the cloud lifted and the views from the Carnedd Llewelyn Sheraton were genuinely extensive.
-
- Time for a little constitutional before bed. It was a bit windy up there!
-
- My home-made tarp keeping the hail off nicely. At last, an almost competent bivy!
-
- Top quality Welsh supper. Well, mostly Welsh.
-
- Carnedd Llewelyn is (altogether now…) famous for extensive views!
-
- The little wind shelter. Amazingly the clouds kept clear of the summit.
-
- Nighty-night…
-
- Inside the miraculous ‘welfare unit’, miles from anywhere in the middle of a vast forest. Pitch darkness and teeming rain outside.
-
- Back into the dark, mysterious forest…
-
- I’ll hike into the massive, dark, troll-infested Clocaenog Forest at dusk. What can go wrong?
-
- Great works in progress…
-
- Well, the path can completely disappear, for example…
-
- Windfarm blades, and another unlocked cabin with a laptop in it!
-
- The turbine pillars are enormous.
-
- Thank you Brian!
-
- Heading down into deceptively welcoming farmland.
-
- Oh the Denbigh Moors, the Denbigh Moors, the trackless Denbigh Moors…
-
- The almost invisible rotted remains of a stile vindicated the GPS claiming I was on a ‘path’;
-
- The tussocky Denbigh Moors…
-
- Ah yes, this looks like a Public Footpath..
-
- Erm, OK…
-
- Over ancient elfin bridges in secret dells…
-
- Heading down the grassy slope from Foel Grach
-
- Inside the shelter on Foel Grach, which is so damp your phone just steams up. A lifesaver in extreme conditions though, I should think.
-
- The first snippet of a view, at about 500 m
-
- This is a Public Footpath. Yes, down there, into the obstructed unknown…
-
- Brian’s garden.
-
- Coming up to Moel Morfydd, Moel y Gamelin behind. Joyfully easy walking and the whole place to myself.
-
- Excuse me, I’m from Norfolk. What are those big green lumps?
-
- The immense cost and labour of building what are now peaceful recreational waterways with eighteenth century equipment is mind-boggling, and of course quite a few of the navvies died in the process.
-
- The economics of running a hostel were marginal enough even before Covid-19. As so often, I had the cosy lounge with its books, games and woodburner all to myself, and promptly broke a string on the guitar.
-
- A river brings great energy to any settlement, especially if it flows bright and lively. Even London acquires a strange, pulsating life force from the turgid tides and flocculent eddies of the Thames.
-
- Oh no!
-
- The only way to dry your socks in a hotel when it’s summer and the heating’s turned off.
-
- Along the slippery grass atop the vertiginous gorge…
-
- And at the far end this bridge, which carries you over the neck of the reservoir and out onto the Denbigh Moors.
-
- And finally out, onto Alwen Reservoir which as you can see is very picturesque.
-
- A little rest in a flowery meadow.
-
- The famous panorama of Snowdonia. Don’t tell me it’s going to rain again…
-
- Looks great…
-
- The sudden stile. I guess this track comes up from Llyn Eigiau on the north side.
-
- The final slope onto the summit is quite strange, like a pixies’ graveyard.
-
- Heading towards Pen LLithrig y Wrach there was no path at all, until I got to that fence and suddenly found a stile.
-
- Lyn Cowlyd
-
- The steep pull up Pen Llithrig y Wrach
-
- Heading down Pen Llithrig y Wrach towards Pen yr Helgi Du, the ridge is still nice and broad at this point.
-
- Another quite steep pull up to Pen yr Helgi Du
-
- The couple I met have just got to the top.
-
- At the top of the precipitous descent.
-
- Summit of Pen yr Helgi Du, looing towards Carnedd Llewelyn
-
- The summit is famous for extensive views. Any corrections to my mountain naming welcome!
-
- Along a surprisingly manicured avenue…
-
- A bit of warm dawn light.
-
- Oh my goodness, what miracle of historical civil engineering is this now?
-
- Extensive views of a sewage works.
-
- The River Dee, and more spectacular arches top right – that’s the viaduct built 1846-8 by Henry Robertson, 19 arches and 150 feet high, so there…
-
- Famously, there’s no railing on the waterway side. Narrowboat drivers must grasp their tillers firmly while staring into an abyss.
-
- Heading west out of Llangollen along the river.
-
- Up from the watershed to the gap between Gyrn (left) and Moel Wnion (right).
-
- Moel Morfydd summit
-
- Nobody with any sense walks across the Denbigh Moors because they are quite absurdly tussocky and very difficult going!
-
- Compared to the ‘paths’ I’d become used to, this track up the hill from Rhewl was like a motorway.
-
- At last, onto a well-known Way!
-
- That white sticker explains the terrifying draconian penalties for interfering with Public Footpath signs.
-
- These two clearly recognised a fellow beast of burden as they followed me for some way. I think they could smell the pies I’d bought at Llangollen.
-
- A manicured landscape, for a change.
-
- And this is the other end…
An Oldie Outdoors 