One day left on the Welsh Hewitts

[trailman]

Yesterday, on Moel Sych and Post Gwyn, was pleasantly warm, with a bit of a breeze to cool things down; today would be hot, in the mid-20s even on the tops, with barely a hint of wind to take off the edge. Just as well I woke early, so that I could be off the hill before mid-afternoon and the worst of the temperatures.

This round is essentially a horseshoe walk around Cwm Maen Gwynedd, with Cadair Berwyn at its head. Moel Sych is generally included, but I'd been there yesterday, for the very deliberate reason that I wanted Cadair Berwyn to be my very last Welsh Hewitt, but if you want to include it then it's just a few hundred yards from the col then back down again.

cadair berwyn.gpx Open full screen  NB: Walkhighlands is not responsible for the accuracy of gpx files in users posts

There's room for three cars, if they are friendly, by the bridge over the stream at Tyn-y-ffridd. Get there early on a hot day and you can grab the shaded spot.

Parking by the stream

There's a nice view from here into the cwm whose ridges I will be walking, all the way to Cadair Berwyn itself.

Cwm Maen Gwynedd, with the Berwyn ridge in the distance

But it’s a sharp start. The first of the day’s four Hewitts, Mynydd Tarw, is barely a mile from the car, with over 1100ft of climbing – a relentless 1 in 5 all the way. Still, even a 71 year old with a dodgy hip and recovering from his first-ever bout of Covid can do that in 33 minutes, and by some measure it’s the steepest stuff of the day.

Half way up Mynydd Tarw, sheep were sheltering in the shade of pine trees

The wind shelter on Mynydd Tarw

A mile further along comes Foel Wen, a bit of a lump where the summit is nowhere near as clear as on the hill before. There’s a stake in the ground just the other side of a fence, which I skipped over just in case the stake was the high point. Another intervening hill, Tomle, is higher than its predecessors, but does not have the re-ascent needed for Hewitt status. Just beyond, there are a couple of peat hags to negotiate.

Possibly the high point of Foel Wen

Cadair Berwyn from a peat hag on Tomle

It’s easy to reach Cadair Berwyn from here, but I had to veer right to reach the col between it and Cadair Bronwen, on a simple path that has a glorious reveal when it joins the ridge - a tremendous west to north-west panorama of all Snowdonia.

Snowdonia panorama

On the rise to Cadair Bronwen - 'climb' might be over-egging it - there are more of the railway sleepers that I'd met on the descent from Moel Sych the day before.

The rise to Cadair Bronwen

From the top, I looked out over the two northern Berwyns that I had climbed in 2015 before turning back and making for my final Welsh Hewitt.

Looking north from Cadair Bronwen

The cairn on Cadair Bronwen, looking over to Cadair Berwyn, with the Aran ridge to the right

I wanted to meet someone on the summit of Cadair Berwyn. A reappearance from Digby and Rachel of Post Gwyn would have been very welcome, but wasn’t going to happen. I’d only seen a couple of mountain bikers, a hill runner and, far away, a couple of walkers heading down from Cadair Bronwen towards the northern hills. Surely, there must be someone up there – it’s a summer Sunday after all? Maybe the heat had put people off.

Cadair Berwyn has three bits of summit. There’s first the trig point, then a wind shelter, but the summit, the most southerly of the three, is pure rock.

Cadair Berwyn summit from the trig point

It was at the wind shelter that I met Gwyn – hooray! He spoke to me first – he’d wanted to eat his summit sandwich at the true summit, but the midges were a nightmare, and he was looking for somewhere lower. (I had a summit sandwich today too, a chicken and stuffing that had been steadily heating up in my pack for the last three hours and became the prime suspect in a food poisoning incident the following day.)

But we dodged the insects long enough for me to tell him of my personal milestone and appreciative he was too. That was enough. I touched the top rock of the summit, took a few selfies – not shown here, but each of them has flying beasties buzzing round my head – and dropped down far enough to have my salmonella buttie in relative peace.

Home time now. There’s still four miles to go, the heat is building, my target is achieved, and the southern arm of the horseshoe is the least attractive part of the day. It starts well enough, on a nicely graded path heading down from the col between Cadair Berwyn and Moel Sych; if only Llyn Lluncaws were not covered in something brown and nasty!

Llyn Lluncaws. Not pretty, today.

The path heading down from the col between Cadair Berwyn and Moel Sych

But there’s more fence following to come, and one section where it looks as though a fence-free path cuts a corner but the path disappears and there’s nasty heathery stuff before the fence is regained. It leads to Godor, like Tomle not a Hewitt but a pretty good mountain name all the same.

Looking across to Tomle and Foel Wen from Godor

It’s now relentlessly downhill from here, into calmer sheep pastures, and proper tracks start to appear.

Heading back to Tyn-y-ffridd, with the Wrekin in the far distance

Finally, a right of way turns out to be a gravelled farmers’ track. Complete with farmers, taking in the hay harvest. I have a chat with the farmer’s brother, he’s well impressed, and I get a handshake. Made my day. If he sees me again, I tell him, I'll be in the Yorkshire Dales, where I've just got a few hills left.

The track home

[mattcymru]

what amazing weather and views! and im surprised you can see as far as Radnor and Drygarn.
must note though that pistyll rhaedr is 73m, devils appendix and pistyll y llyn are 90m !