OK, this day could have gone better I'm afraid. Because I saw it as a rest day I had a lie in and a leisurely breakfast, then it rained for a while, so I did not start walking until after 9.45am. I was planning to walk up to the highest point of Cader Idris, which is called Penygadair (893m, 2,930ft). There is a shelter there. No problems to start with, the first mile or two is up narrow lanes. The fun starts past a farm called Bwlch Coch, where you start walking over boggy ground full of reeds, gullies and such, and the path totally disappears. I found my way through it all eventually, but it took quite a long time. It was well into the afternoon by the time I was on Gau Graig, the ridge leading up to the top. I ploughed on up, getting a little nervous about the time, until I got to the top of Mynydd Moel (863m, 2,831ft). This is the summit before Penygadair and only 30m lower, though as usual you go must down and then back up again. Surprisingly for such a well-known hill, i saw nobody all day, not a soul.
I sat on Mynydd Moel for a few minutes, and then decided to go back down, partly for reasons of time, partly because the weather was still iffy, and partly because frankly Penygadair looked pretty much the same as Mynydd Moel with much the same views. Looking back now I can't imagine why I didn't carry on, it is not as if daylight was an issue, but there we go.
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| Cader Idris. The further lump is Mynydd Moel, you can't see Penygadair yet |
I floundered back down the hill side, a little quicker than coming up because now I could follow the quite detailed instructions in the Cicerone guidebook. Even so I had to climb a couple of barbed wire fences, because the gaps the guidebook mentioned did not exist. I got back to Dolgellau about 6.30pm, after a full-but-very-slightly-unsatisfactory day.
Tomorrow is the last day, when I walk back to Machynlleth and my car.
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| Penygadair from Mynydd Moel |
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| View from near the top of Mynydd Moel |
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