The Fourteenth

 

Today was the day we “do Wales”, the last of the Welsh mountains over 3,000 feet, which as you might have guessed from the title, there are 14 in total.

 

The lump in question was Elidir Fawr, which some might know as ‘Electric Mountain’, the power station that lies beneath the hill. in Llanberis. 

 

Red = Done

With us today was daughter number 3, “A”, age 15 (or 14!), no stranger to hiking but not so much in the hills, so today was a new experience for her.

 

The weekend started in the normal manner, N (and A) round to mine the night before for beers and a DVD (Trollhunter – most amusing) and early start to get us to Idwal Cottage for about 9.00am (via the obligatory Abegele Maccy Dees of course).

 

Although not mentioned much on this blog (all visits were pre-blog), myself and N have been to this neck of the woods (Ogwen Valley), loads of times, namely…

• Pen Yr Ole Wen & Carnedds with E, G & N
• Welsh Winter Skills – Plas y Brenin – N
• Tryfan – N (and previously with AP)
• Tryfan Camping then Bangor for Bus Stop Butties! – N
• Glyders & Y Garn via Bristley Screes (bag droppage) – N
• Glyders with N & R – met Ranger, no winter kit.

… and that’s just off the top of me head, there's probably more.  The  Ogwen Valley is a beautiful place, not like anywhere else in the UK that I know of.  Feels proper mountainous (is that a word?!).

 

Anyway, the route was as per the following picture, which is basically up the ridge of Y Garn, right turn for Foel Goch quick climb up to Elidir Fawr and then home in time for tea.  Once at  Devils Kitchen  , the real climbing begins…

  

The Route

On reaching what I thought was the top of ridge, through the gloom we could just about make out the summit of Y Garn.  It was a little closer than expected as it was never the intention to bag this one (again), it was according to the map a bit of a climb off to the left of the ridge.   "Never mind", thought nothing of it (at the time), so ‘A’ zipped up to bag her very first Welsh 3,000 footer.  She’d never walked this high before and was doing brilliantly.   Yay!

 

Whilst ‘A’ was the top it seemed an ideal opportunity to take a bearing to our next destination, Foel Goch, just for safety’s sake like, plus it was something to do whilst ‘A’  was climbing over boulders.   Although the direction was surely obvious?  We came to the end of a ridge, the summit was just off to our left and Foel Goch was a right turn.  Easy right?  How hard can it be to get lost on a ridge?  (We wont mention Crib Goch at this point)….

 

Soooo... bearing taken, point compass into gloom and hey presto that’s the direction we go…. WRONG!  It was telling us to go LEFT!  This cant be right,  That’s never right, this compass isn’t right, these magic magnetic rocks or my phone or SOMETHING is making this clearly not very RIGHT at all!  Every bone in my body was screaming “turn right”!!!!!….  So guess what we did?



Endomondo Track

You got it dear readers, we turned “right”, yet it still didn’t feel right, and a confirmation with the GPS proved it wasn’t right at all!  How the hell did that happen?  It wasn’t until I saw the actual track logged in the above photo (after we got home) that I realised our mistake.  You can clearly see how we basically did a loop around the summit of Y Garn and ended up approaching it from exactly the opposite angle.  Clag, its dangerous stuff and can be quite disconcerting how you can be ‘turned’ a whole 180 degrees without even realising.

 

So I’ve, said it before, and I’m going to say it again but a little bit louder, in case I don’t listen again…

 

TRUST THE FECKING COMPASS!!!

 

I didnt say to the other two at the time, but I was very very close to saying ‘lets go down again’ at this point.  Going wrong I can cope with, going wrong and not knowing why is a real head screw.  Grumpy Greg.

 

Ogwen Valley

 

A & N at Llyn Idwal

 

Ogwen Valley higher up

 

Llyn Idwal, our last view before the cloud

 

Number 14!!!!

 

Number 2!!!!!

N's in there somewhere

Height confirmed pretty accurately

 

 

'A's Styal fetish begins

 

 

'A' in a gorge, nearly home.

So that’s it, Wales.  Done.  Or is it?  Well no, you only have to look at all those green triangles in the 1^st picture to realise there's still shed loads to do.  Heres just a few ideas for a start…

• Snowdon Horseshoe
• Snowdon from Watkins / Ranger / Rhydd Du paths
• Nantille Ridge
• Brecon Beacons
• Rhinogs
• Cadair Idris in good visibility
• Cnicht

…. And so the list goes on....