Welsh 3 Day Expedition

Introduction

As part of my drive to rack up the sufficient number of Quality Mountain Days for me to consider going for the ML Assessment, I need to do a number of wild camps. I have done a couple of walks that included a single night of wild camping but wanted to push myself a bit harder and do a three day / two night expedition. I also wanted to explore another area of Snowdonia National Park.

I’ve been a fan of Geoff and Vivien’s website at http://v-g.me.uk for a while now and used their route around the South Arenigs as inspiration for this expedition.

Monday 17th September

Fortunately I was working from home today so was able to get away nice and early. I managed to leave home at about 5.45 arriving at the campsite at Bwch yn Uchaf at about 21.45. It was dark from about Shrewsbury and wet from Oswestry / Llangollen, with really heavy rain as I arrived at the campsite. Met by Stan the night watch man who told me more than I wanted to know about the campsite.

Tuesday 18th September

There were several showers during the night but I managed to sleep well. I was up and ready to go by 9.15am. The campsite is right next to the end of the Bala light railway and, despite being laden down with my rucksack, I took a small diversion on to the platform to take a couple of photos of the train waiting at the platform.

The first major obstacle of the day was the green lane. Nettles, brambles and an iron gate made it impassable at the start so I skirted around the edge of the farmer’s field, dropping back into the green lane when I could and walking along the edge of the field when I needed to. It was while I was in the green lane that I was almost buzzed by a buzzard, as the bird flew into the tunnel like green lane, only a few metres ahead of me. There was wildlife everywhere, including ravens and big hairy caterpillars crawling across the wet moss.

Approaching the lone cottage at Castell I was aware of an electronic alarm coming from the house, but there was no sign of any recent human habitation.

Passing into the Y Lordship forest I followed the forest track. In amongst the trees the ground was covered by huge swathes of deep green lush moss, with various fungi poking through.

Moss in Y Lordship Forest

Emerging from the forest I turned left on to the road and then through a gate onto a bridleway that crossed the forest. It was hard enough making my way through the long grass of the bridleway, but as the track emerged onto the moorland it got even harder as I got my first real taste of the heather and sphagnum bogs.

Looking across the heather tussocks and sphagnum moss bogs, with Arenig Faw in the back ground.

Made it to the planned campsite very early, so pushed on and summited Arenig Fawr, where I managed a self portrait next to the memorial plaque and small collection of debris from the USAF Flying Fortress that crashed onto the mountain on the 4th August 1943. From the summit shelter I watched as an RAF training jet flew up the valley, just above the ground and well below me.

Since it was still very early (I had made it to the summit by 14.30) I was debating pushing on from the planned campsite to the foot of Moel Llyfnant or perhaps even further. However, descending from the summit I met two guys coming up who were obviously familiar with the area. They warned that the pass was always damp and there would be more shelter on Arenig Fawr than at the foot of Moel Llyfnant. I therefore headed back to the original campsite and had pitched tent my tent by 15.45.

Lying in the tent, sheltered from the wind it was really quite warm as the late afternoon sun bathed the tent. However, after dinner, as the sun set behind Moel Llyfnant it started to cool off quite a bit and it began to rain. Between the showers the summit was really beautifully stunning in the late evening sun.

Arenig Fawr in the evening sun.

Cooked dinner of cream of chicken soup, beef casserole and sponge and custard pudding. The latter could have done with longer to heat through but all were very tasty.

Snuggling down in my sleeping bag it was just me, a few sheep munching on grass near by and the sound of the mountain fairies running through the grass and whistling through the rocks. Or was that the wind, or just my imagination?

Settled down to get some sleep at about 18.15. since it was still light I used my Buff as a blindfold and was soon asleep. Waking in the night I lay listening to the noises of the mountain at night. Was that a foot fall in the grass, or just a passing sheep? Or was it just the wind? It felt like the middle of the night. In fact, it was only ten to eleven. My blood sugar felt a bit low, so I had a couple of flapjacks, pulled on my long johns as I was feeling a bit chilly and was soon fast asleep again.

Wednesday 19th September

Finally decided to get up at about 7.45, so that must have been about 12 hours sleep I had on top of the mountain! My left contact lens took ages to get in, but luckily the right one went in first go. The midnight snack must have been a good idea because my blood sugar this morning was ideal at 5.5. I decided to get up, pack most of the gear away and have breakfast while the tent was airing – there was a lot of condensation inside.

I got underway by 9.15 and even with a stop to resupply with water from a stream I made it to the summit of Moel Llyfnant in less than an hour.

On the summit of Moel Llyfnant sheltering from the wind

From Moel Llyfnant I headed north west, following the north edge of a forest to Moel Slates, from where there was a fantastic view of the Snowdon range to the north.

The Snowdon range from Moel Slates

From Moel Slates I followed the ridge south to Bwlch y Bi and on to Foel Boeth. From there it was South East to Pen y Feidiog and from there into the Coed Y Brenin forest.

There is a reason why people don’t use open access land as much as some organisations might hope for, its because when there are no footpaths to follow it can be blooming hard going trying to make your way across knee deep, ankle twisting heather tussocks and sphagnum moss. When farmers build and mend fences where there is no public right of way, it can make it difficult, if not impossible to follow the planned route.

Having managed to fight my way out of the Coed Y Brenin wood I made my way down the valley side towards Cwm Hasgen. According to the map there should be foot bridge and a ford over the stream. Unfortunately I couldn’t find either and therefore had to find my own way across the fast flowing stream. The original plan was to camp about 1km to the north of Rhobell Fawr and attempt to summit it on Thursday. However, as I followed the Nant yr Helyg along the side of the forest, heading towards Llechwedd Llynn I encountered a repaired wall and fence that was too high to safely cross. I therefore retreated slightly and followed the footpath south through the forest.

Reaching the southern edge of the forest I followed the signposted firebreaks through the forest to the southern slopes of Dduallt. It was getting late in the day and it was a deceptively long climb to the summit, with several false tops but the views from the top made it worthwhile. As I descended northwards I started looking for somewhere to camp. From the ridge I could see that the northern part of the forest to the east had been cleared and would not offer any camping opportunities, as I was hoping for. So somewhere sheltered was needed on this side of the open marshy area. As the fence line dropped to a low point I crossed to a less steeply sloping grassy area, sheletered from the wind. By now it was getting very late and the sky was looking very threatning, so I picked a spot and pitched the tent.

Unfortuantely, what had looked like a reasonable area for the tent turned out to slope in all the wrong directions and have a blooming great big rock in the middle. To add to my woes I had used the last of my gas to heat a cup of coffee for breakfast so had to make do with a cold sausage casserole and a cold custard pudding.

It was a long and uncomfortable night with lots of rain and strong wind, despite the shletered position.

Thursday 20th September

According to my watch sunrise was due around 6.40 this morning and it did seem to start to get light from about 5.30am. I got my contact lenses in by headtorch light and soon had everything packed up apart from the tent. The rain held off long enough for me to get out the tent to do up my boots and put on my gaiters and waterproof trousers, but the rain came down as I packed up the tent and despite the adage to start off cold I didn’t want to faff about taking off my fleece that I had on under my waterproof jacket. Looking back, maybe I should have put the waterproof jacket on over my baselayer and then put the synthetic down jacket over the top.

I managed to recross the stream that had resulted in wet feet the night before without incident and found the fence line leading east. It was a slow steady trudge through large tussocks of heather and the omnipresent sphagnum moss bog. The original plan was to follow the ridge up Cerrig yr lwrch but given the wind and the rain I must admit that couldn’t see the point and so kept to the footpath that follows Afon Ffwy. I was looking for the footbridge to enable me to head across to the Nan Ty Coch. The stream was about six feet wide, several feet deep and was flowing very fast through a well cut channel. The bridge did not fill me with confidence, a rectangle of wooden poles covered with rusty corrugated steel. Three of the poles had slid from their original position, leaving the surface at an awkward angle. I had no choice but to go for it. Trying to keep my feet over the one pole remaining in position I placed the tips of my walking poles in holes in the corrugated surface to stop them slipping.

The corrugated foot bridge

I made it across safely and followed the obvious track down the hill. Approaching a ladder stile over a wall I was focusing more on the stile than where I was walking and managed to get a very wet foot by stepping up to my calf in to a stream. I followed the path to the farm below Graig ddu. I wanted to follow the footpath north to Ty Coch and then on to the road. However, the map showed the footpath crossing the stream in a small wood. I managed to find where a stile had been but there was no sign of a path beyond the stile. So, I went into the next field and crossed into the wood where there was less vegetation. The wood covers the steep slopes either side of the stream and the ground was very wet and slippery. I managed to make it safely down to the stream and crossed with the help of some fallen trunks in the water.

The far side was even more slippery with low branches impeding my progress so I pushed straight up and crossed the fence onto a track, rather than try and follow the route of the footpath through the woods. From Ty Coch I was able to follow a new footpath east. This came out on to a tarmac road after about 400 metres. I was able to follow this down to the minor road and then stomp back to Llanuwchllyn.

The full collection of photos can be seen on my Flickr page.