Wales' 2000's - Final Chapters - New Radnor

[jonathan]

There are 191 mountain tops in Wales over 2000’, known collectively as the Nuttalls. After climbing Tryfan for the first time in 1983 I’m closing in on them. Nicola (my wife) has spent substantially less time in getting to the point where we now need 18 between us to complete them. This Easter we spent 5 days travelling round picking a number off; from New Radnor on the England Wales border, to Pen y Garn south of Plynlimon, finishing off in the Berwyns.

The weather, as most of you will agree wasn’t brilliant, to the extent I’ve no photos to show from the 3 hills that look down on New Radnor, last Thurs. But as theres no report on this site of those hills I'm not letting that deter me.

It snowed as we packed our bags at the car, stopped for a time as we found the trig point on Great Rhos. It then resumed continuously as we made our way by compass and close mapwork over to Black Mixon and Bache Hill. Our ski goggles were on all day!! The route we took is per the one in the Nuttalls book, except we did it the other way round. In clear conditions this would be a doddle of a walk. In mist and clag it was a bit trickier; all three tops have a trig point so you know when you've reached the tops.

We followed the track marked on the 1:25 OS map to the fence on Great Rhos at 185638. Rather than take a straight bearing to the trig point we followed the track as it was going in the right direction then headed left at a junction. After some pace counting the trig point appeared from the mist on the left. After some scran it was on to Black Mixon. Theres a forest north of Great Rhos but the clag was so thick we had to be on top of it before we found it; couldnt see the wood for the trees so to speak! We got a bit lost here cos the 1:50 doesnt have two streams shown in Harley Dingle so we wernt where we thought we where. By a process of elimination we worked out where we were and used a forest road and access road to get to Black Mixon. BM has a transmitter mast and building on it so we knew where we where when it appeared out of the mist. Again rather than take a bearing straight for Bache Hill we used the forest road then took a bearing. 2 mins on BH to refuel then it was a bearing off the hill and straight back to New Radnor.

Not the weather I envisaged having been aware we would be doing these hills for a number of years now; but at least it proved we could still (almost) use our map and compass!!

[john923]

Really must do these 3 this year, since they're relatively local. Will try and pick a clearer day than you had though!

[wurzel]

Well, you're just finishing the Welsh Nuttalls, and I've just started, but I did go to New Radnor last month, and the weather was okay for photos. So to complement your report, I'll add a few, if you don't mind:

Looking into Harley Dingle from somewhere near Black Mixen

Lokking down Harley Dingle

Looking towards Bache Hill from the west side of the Dingle. The weapons testing range buildings and road can be seen on the lower ground

They were blowing up things on the range when I visited, but apart from that the only person I saw was in the village on the way back to the car.

[jonathan]

ahh so thats what it loks like

thanks for sharing the photos. The great thing about doing a tick list like the Nuttalls or Hewitts is that you go to places you wouldnt otherwise go to. Most of the days we've spent in the Arenigs or the hills around Bleanau, say, we've seen no-one. So even on a grand day like yours you really can escape the modern world.

[johnnyaztec]

I was up here a few weeks ago myself,lovely area ,we did the route the opposite way round to you starting at Bache Hill and finishing on Great Rhos.As you can see we got lucky with the view also.

Black Mixen from Bache Hill

Looking back toward Bache Hill