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I had a few days free, so got in touch with AJ and we arranged to do a couple of days in Wales to bag some Hewitts.
AJ just had the Plynlimon 5 to do, to finish Central Wales, so I got up at 5.30 and headed there in the car to meet him for Friday morning. After a bit of looking about, we managed to get hold of a map and AJ plugged in Poppiesrara's start point co-ordinates to his GPS and we headed off to the Nant-y-moch resevoir.
This map in no way is accurate. Just a guess where we went.
On the way we came across some pretty agitated highland looking cattle, who were not too happy to see us, or let us pass.
I was just glad AJ was driving a red car and mine was not.
After ten minutes of slow edging forward, we got past the cows and parked up. We had to get dressed and organised in the pouring rain. I got ready in a rush and made a few silly mistakes, as I got ready. This lead to my boots, socks and gloves getting soaked.
It was pouring with rain and about 6 degree's. We headed up hill towards the first peak, which was a Nuttall that AJ wanted to bag. I believe it was called Pumlumon Fach.
The higher we got the worse the wind got, to the point where it was so cold it was making my teeth hurt.
We headed on to the first Hewitt, which was Pen-Punlumon Fawr. It was quite a step climb up, but not too far. There was a good trig point on top.
Sadly the wind and driving rain prevented any thoughts of photography. We decided to carry on and due to the heavy fog we were reliant on AJ's GPS for navigation. We skirted around some bogey ground and were at the next summit in about twenty minutes. After circumnavigating the bog, we followed the fence to the third summit. From here there was about 2km to the next, so we hardly even stopped. Any idling would lead to getting very cold. We marched to the third peak, which was Pen Pumlumon Arwystli. There was around 2km between the peaks, so it was a good solid trek, still following the fence. We passed some large peat hags on the way and made it to the summit of hill number 4 in around half an hour.
After this summit we returned to the previous one and then moved our way along the ridge to get to Y Garn from the South East. I had to stop, to cram in a sandwich, which I had to gain access too with my teeth, as my hands were freezing. After a quick gobble, we gained the summit of the final hill and then headed down hill as quick as possible.
We got back to the cars and got some dry clothes on. The original plan was to head on to do Pen Y Garn, which is aproximately 30 mins drive South, but we were going to lose the light and were both soden. So we headed to the YHA in Borth and cleaned up and headed to the Victoria Inn pub, for food and beers. Good day all around!
On the return to the YHA, I noticed this sign in the toilets which amused me.
Both of us got our heads down for a good nights sleep, after a testing day in the hills, which was ultimately quite satisfying. Even though we saw nothing more than 10 feet beyond our faces. Can't have good weather all the time.....
