A Should've-Been-Obvious Fall Ends My Hewitt Initiation

[aaquater]

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

Following a combination of poor prioritisation and the madness that was the first three quarters of 2024, I'm only getting to this report now. Let's see how much I still remember...

First and foremost, it was the beginning of my placement. Staying in Bedfordshire, the Welsh Hewitts were my closest hills for the following three months. And since I'd known that for a while, I'd looked up a few possible routes beforehand; as the weather during the first weekend was nice (perhaps a bit too nice), I definitely wanted to go. Aiming to keep it simple, I chose to start my Welsh hillwalking on hills requiring the least amount of travelling: the Berwyn ridge. (As in, a 3-hour drive each way, instead of 4+ hours.) So, after figuring out the parking situation at Tan-y-pistyll (and wondering why this random car park was so full...), I got out of the car, ready to be introduced to the Welsh hills.

The path ahead would've taken me directly up the S ridge of Moel Sych, but I planned to walk up the valley, so first, I had to cross the area of bracken to get to the path on the other side of the stream

A path still led through the bracken, but was quite overgrown. Once I reached the main path of the valley, though, bracken was no longer an issue

Looking back over the car park to the cliffs on the other side of the valley

Now, it was about reaching the top of the valley, and climbing to the Hewitt summits enclosing it. Which was simple enough on a well-maintained path with a low gradient, except the weather was very reminiscent of my recent trip to Loch Arkaig - very hot and muggy - and I wasn't keen on repeating the experience of being wrung out by the time I reached the first hill. So I went rather slowly, enjoying the good path, and passed by Llyn Lluncaws still feeling relatively fresh.

Above the llyn, the gradient picked up, but thanks to the excellent path, the climb was simple - and during the numerous short breaks, I could feast on the views opening up before me

After maybe 20 minutes, I reached the ridge, and the ground levelled out. What I appreciated even more was that, at >800 m, the temperature was now considerably below 30 degrees. I was a couple minutes away from the summit of Moel Sych, but the path I was on bypassed it.

Instead, it headed for the next Hewitt of the ridge: Cadair Berwyn

Which I reached a few minutes later, and could enjoy the views ESE down Cwm Maen Gwynedd

S towards Llyn Lluncaws and Cwm Blowty

E towards Snowdonia

Or N further along the Berwyn ridge, even though I was going to head the opposite way

Of note, even though I knew the S summit of Cadair Berwyn was the higher one, I also visited the trig. After that, I turned on my heel and visited the summit of Moel Sych, where I'd planned to have lunch. Cadair Berwyn made me a little uneasy about that, since it suffered from cairn flies, but fortunately, Moel Sych didn't share that touristy feature.

As well, in comparison to Cadair Berwyn and Cadair Bronwen behind it,

It seemed that I was going to abandon anything 'touristy' for a good while

There was still a path that I could follow for a good 45 minutes, taking me down the SW ridge of Moel Sych. That was the nice, easy part of bridging Moel Sych with Post Gwyn. But then I came upon the plateau where I wanted to leave the path and cross over to the third Hewitt. According to the map, there was no path to be followed over that ridge.

At first, I thought there might be a path of sorts available anyway

Unfortunately, as it turned out, the plateau was just a web of bogs and ankle-breaking tussocks

And the hill itself was no better. Eventually, I reached a grassy track that I'd seen from below and hoped to take to the summit - but as it turned out, that wasn't where it led, and I was in for a repeat of tussock negotiation.

The summit itself was sporting a path again

But the slopes leading up to it were rough, boggy, and took twice as long to get across as I planned

Beyond Post Gwyn, I had a bit of the ridge to get through before I could safely drop down to the cwm on the left, where the car park was

Of course, shortly after the summit, I lost the path.

Some 700 m later, I found another one, which later turned into a track

Except that this track came to a halt in front of a tall fence topped with barbed wire. Consulting the map, I could see that if I didn't want to climb this fence (which I didn't), I could turn right and then take a path that would regain the ridge diagonally. The loss of altitude wasn't pleasant, as I knew I'd have to climb everything back up, but the sight in front of me was more alarming: apparently, I was about to walk into a firing range.

The path I'd take back up the hill was close, though, and the fence separating me from it wasn't barbed, so I climbed over and up, back towards the ridge.

This junction wasn't shown on the map...

Thinking that I had to rejoin the ridge, I went left - and realised I reached the ridge a bit sooner than I expected. Perhaps I should've gone right. Consulting the map again, I realised I must've been just W of the 596 m point, so I climbed over a couple fences to get back to the path I wanted to be on. From there, I could see the paths laid out as shown on the map.

So I took the path down

And then the zig-zaggy track

Actually, there was a moment a little lower, where the track left the fence running on its right, but the right of way was meant to continue alongside it. Except I couldn't see any path running by the fence, so I continued down the track, coming back to the right of way after an extra sharp turn.

Turning left again, the right of way was now clear, and heading to the car park

The path took led through gorse and bracken, but was maintained enough for the foliage not to present much difficulty. And as I was getting close to the car park, I finally realised why it was so full, even though I hadn't met that many people during the walk. There were 'Waterfall' signs by the car park, but I hadn't paid them much attention.

Until I got out of the woods and realised that the Waterfall was actually quite a big deal, as it was Pistyll Rhaeadr, the tallest single-drop waterfall in Britain

It should've clicked given the fact that the waterfall was named on the map. But I hadn't bothered to look into it, thought that everyone that was there could only be there for hillwalking, and felt like a right idiot.

Regardless, having had a taste of paths, bracken, and tussocks, I thought the walk was a reasonable introduction to Welsh hillwalking. As long as the 30-degree weather wasn't a sign of the things to come.