Brettus
16-06-09, 11:49 AM
I've always thought when driving/riding past the mountains in wales, wouldn't it be nice to walk up one of those? But that sentiment pays no attention to the fact I am an overweight desk worker with a BMI that feels higher than my IQ (and I'm not a dumbass!)
Turns out my mate had thought the same thing from time to time and we were looking for an excuse for a photo trip so we went. I'd had my eye on Glyder Fawr since walking up and around Llyn Idwal as a geography student in high school, turns out its the 3rd highest peak in wales! sat neatly (geographically) between the 1st and 2nd too.
The weather looked good on Saturday so off we went, I parked my bike up in a car park near Chester, met up with Knapster and we went the rest of the way in his car. After chatting too much I thought "cool, theres Menai bridge...... wait, what?! thats Menai bridge!, what are we doing here?" a quick turn around and we headed back along the A5 and found the car park I'd seen so many times on google earth while weighing this trip up. full of enthusiasm and described so well by the phrase "all the gear, no idea" we had backpacks loaded with stuff, walking poles, drink, food, spare clothes and of course cameras.
after making it round to the back of Llyn Idwall (which looked a heck of a lot lower on google earth!) we were almost knackered, verging on the idea of doing the Llyn circuit and heading back as this was a stupid idea, two reasonably unfit geeks scaling the 3rd highest mountain in wales. We had lunch and took some waterfall pictures and things, we couldn't see where people were heading as they wandered up around the path but didn't seem to come back down the other side :confused:
Turns out, theres a path ominously called Devil's Kitchen that ascends almost vertically, the back of Cwm Idwal, being idiots we decided that one mad scramble to the top would do it, we can make this, this looks achievable! I can't begin to describe how misguided this thought was, we passed lots of climbers making their way down, one of them we spoke to said we were about 1/4 the way up :o I was pretty sure he was joking as we had made it to quite an altitude already but we carried on anyway.
As we were climbing we heard the mountain rescue helicopter passing by, a few minutes later it was back, and headed right into the Cwm! I found out afterwards from BBC news, a 62 year old climber had injured his leg and needed air lifting, we couldn't tell if it was a training exercise from our vantage point but got a few nice pictures.
We finally got to the top of Devil's kitchen and it lead us out onto a plateau, the next stage was a long steep scree slope to the next "top" we could see, after that there was another stage of more solid rock and a lesser incline. Anyway, as already stated we made it, the view was ace, you can see the entire width of Anglesey from there! saw the Snowdon train making its way up and felt rather jealous :)
The first 5-10 mins of the descent seemed like heaven, until we found our way down that I had suggested would be good, it was down over a rocky crag, quite a few sections dropping and scrambling precariously, then a nice gentle grass slope (ahhh bliss!) but then it just started getting steeper and steeper, the last section (we could have gone around but it was a long way and we were absolutey knackered, we ran out of drink just after the devils kitchen :smt120) the last section felt like near vertical, it was a grassy slope which turned into small bushes, the only way to traverse it without certain death was to slide down, grabbing onto bushes to control your fall! madness, but exhaustion lack of alternatives made it seem like a reasonable idea.
We barely took any pictures after the summit, just the obligatory views and such. We were pretty much silent in the car most of the way home, completely drained but still, we made it! we conquered the mountain :D
Sorry for the long self indulgent post but thought some of you might find the story entertaining, the pictures, distilled down to 12 decent ones from 297 I took through the day are here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/brettnet/sets/72157619705390883/
Thanks for listening and hope you enjoyed :D
I'm selling my old CBR125 later this month so should be getting myself a DSLR then so hopefully the pictures should improve then too. wanted one for ages, but I want a lot of things hehe.
Turns out my mate had thought the same thing from time to time and we were looking for an excuse for a photo trip so we went. I'd had my eye on Glyder Fawr since walking up and around Llyn Idwal as a geography student in high school, turns out its the 3rd highest peak in wales! sat neatly (geographically) between the 1st and 2nd too.
The weather looked good on Saturday so off we went, I parked my bike up in a car park near Chester, met up with Knapster and we went the rest of the way in his car. After chatting too much I thought "cool, theres Menai bridge...... wait, what?! thats Menai bridge!, what are we doing here?" a quick turn around and we headed back along the A5 and found the car park I'd seen so many times on google earth while weighing this trip up. full of enthusiasm and described so well by the phrase "all the gear, no idea" we had backpacks loaded with stuff, walking poles, drink, food, spare clothes and of course cameras.
after making it round to the back of Llyn Idwall (which looked a heck of a lot lower on google earth!) we were almost knackered, verging on the idea of doing the Llyn circuit and heading back as this was a stupid idea, two reasonably unfit geeks scaling the 3rd highest mountain in wales. We had lunch and took some waterfall pictures and things, we couldn't see where people were heading as they wandered up around the path but didn't seem to come back down the other side :confused:
Turns out, theres a path ominously called Devil's Kitchen that ascends almost vertically, the back of Cwm Idwal, being idiots we decided that one mad scramble to the top would do it, we can make this, this looks achievable! I can't begin to describe how misguided this thought was, we passed lots of climbers making their way down, one of them we spoke to said we were about 1/4 the way up :o I was pretty sure he was joking as we had made it to quite an altitude already but we carried on anyway.
As we were climbing we heard the mountain rescue helicopter passing by, a few minutes later it was back, and headed right into the Cwm! I found out afterwards from BBC news, a 62 year old climber had injured his leg and needed air lifting, we couldn't tell if it was a training exercise from our vantage point but got a few nice pictures.
We finally got to the top of Devil's kitchen and it lead us out onto a plateau, the next stage was a long steep scree slope to the next "top" we could see, after that there was another stage of more solid rock and a lesser incline. Anyway, as already stated we made it, the view was ace, you can see the entire width of Anglesey from there! saw the Snowdon train making its way up and felt rather jealous :)
The first 5-10 mins of the descent seemed like heaven, until we found our way down that I had suggested would be good, it was down over a rocky crag, quite a few sections dropping and scrambling precariously, then a nice gentle grass slope (ahhh bliss!) but then it just started getting steeper and steeper, the last section (we could have gone around but it was a long way and we were absolutey knackered, we ran out of drink just after the devils kitchen :smt120) the last section felt like near vertical, it was a grassy slope which turned into small bushes, the only way to traverse it without certain death was to slide down, grabbing onto bushes to control your fall! madness, but exhaustion lack of alternatives made it seem like a reasonable idea.
We barely took any pictures after the summit, just the obligatory views and such. We were pretty much silent in the car most of the way home, completely drained but still, we made it! we conquered the mountain :D
Sorry for the long self indulgent post but thought some of you might find the story entertaining, the pictures, distilled down to 12 decent ones from 297 I took through the day are here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/brettnet/sets/72157619705390883/
Thanks for listening and hope you enjoyed :D
I'm selling my old CBR125 later this month so should be getting myself a DSLR then so hopefully the pictures should improve then too. wanted one for ages, but I want a lot of things hehe.