#13.Llantisilio Loop.8-2-11.

I set off early this morning hoping to catch the sun rising and after a frosty night hoping for a cloud inversion over the River Dee,and i wasn't disappointed.I left the house at 7.15 a.m. and took a detour up onto the Panorama and caught the sun rising in the east.

The view down the Panorama to Castell Dinas Bran (Crow Castle) on the left.

I dropped in to Llan. and headed for Rhewl and was delighted to see the cloud inversion over the River.

I parked by the Capel in Rhewl and was walking by 8 o'clock,up past the 14th century Sun Inn,a nice frosty start,minus 2 degree's the car told me.

I took a different route into the hill's today going up to a house called Cymmo and taking the drover's path.

The drover's path is very steep and as the temperature was rising i started to sweat so my coat and glove's had to come off.This is the view back down the Dee Valley from the top of the drover's path.

And looking up to Moel Morfydd from the same spot,i was glad of the rest.

The colour's were amazing this morning and the wildlife was great,i saw pheasants,pigeons,magpies,all kinds of tits,nuthatches,chaffinch,crows,blackbirds,robins,rabbit and load's of sheep,no traffic noise just nature.
    I normally head up the path that skirt's under Moel Morfydd and then up the north flank but i decided on a little detour today heading south on a good track away from the mountain,this gave me some nice view's over to Moel Fferna in the Berwyn's.

The path eventually turn's north and takes you directly to Moel Morfydd.It is badly eroded by the illegal use of off road motorcyclist's.

A steep pull up the south flank to reach the trig point and the next hill's to walk.

Today the view's were fantastic,i colud see the Berwyn range,the Aran's Arenig Fawr,the Clwydian hill's and every mountain over 3,000 feet in Eryri,seen here.

I now walked across to the hillfort of  Moel y Gaer and then steeply up Moel y Gamelin,this is the view back from the summit.

Looking down to the River Dee,the cloud having dispersed.

I now headed off the mountain east toward's the Berwyn Slate Quarry.

The path now head's to a small copse of tree's and i take the path that is to the left of the tree's.

A gentle sloping path now descend's to Rhewl.On leaving the copse you get this lovely view back up to the mountain's i have just walked.

You pass some lovely house's on the descent.

Me think's that this Ford Fiesta and caravan haven't moved for a while.

You eventually reach a building called"The Conquering Hero",this was one of seven pub's in Rhewl (the Sun Inn is the only one left) and the last to shut in the 1980's.Apparently the other 6 pub's didn,t want another in the village and opposed it but the gentleman trying to open it as a pub fought them and won the right to open it and called it the Conquering Hero after himself,well done sir.

The walk took 3 hour's and was 6.5 mile's long with 2,500 feet of ascent.


MILES         79
ASCENT     20,850
TOPS          27

#12.Ellesmere lake and canal.6-2-11.

The weather in North Wales this weekend was very poor,continuous rain that produced 5 inches and very strong wind's,and it didn't look like we would get out but on looking at the forecast sunday morning it had been predicted to ease off for a few hour's in the North Shropshire,so we decided on a short walk in Ellesmere only 10 mile's from Wrexham.We parked by the side of the biggest lake on the A528,this is called "The Mere",and were immediately surrounded by the wildfowl of the lake looking for some food.

We walked clockwise around the Mere through Cremome Garden's to Paddock Wood.The wind was whipping up some big wave's on the Mere and the few people that were kayaking were having a great time.

On exiting the wood we took a path up to the large property of the Oteley Estate and walked through the ground's and passing close to it's terraced garden.

Close up of terrace.

The road through the estate eventually reaches the A528 and at the entrance we came across the old gatehouse now ruined,what a shame.

We crossed the A528 and dropped down onto the Shropshire Union Canal.This is the tunnel under the A528.

We followed the canal path back to Ellesmere,past lot's of sculpture's.

We eventually reached the marina.

A short walk up Love Lane in the town and past St. Mary's Church.

Back to the A528,turn right and the short walk back to the gaggling Greylag Geese.

Although a very windy walk it was quite mild,we only had a few spot's of rain.Due to the heavy rain recently the lake was higher then normal and we stopped at the Cross Foxes in Overton on the way home to take a few photo's of the swollen River Dee.

The walk was 3 mile's long with a leg hurting 100 feet of ascent.

MILES        72.5
ASCENT    18,350
TOPS          24

#11.Llantisilio Mountains.29-1-11.

After a tough week in work i was desperate to get out for a walk on saturday providing the weather was ok,and after checking the forecast on friday night the walk was on.The forecast was for a clear night with the temperature dropping to minus 5 and a sunny day.Julie wasn't feeling to well on the saturday but she still wanted to get out of the house so i decided on the Llantisilio Mountain's,a local favourite of our's.We parked by Capel Hebron and headed up the lane past the Sun Inn.

It was a balmy minus 1 on leaving the car and we were well wrapped up to keep the cold out.As we gained height and found some shelter from a small copse of tree's we had to take our coat's off.

On leaving the tree's you get a great view of Moel Morfydd.

Out in the open it was freezing cold,the wind really biting,so the coat's went back on.On the last pull up to the summit of Moel Morfydd Julie was really struggling and we had to have a few stop's for her to recover,but i wasn't complaining as the view's are lovely all around.We eventually reached the summit and we could see the whole range in front of us.

To cold to linger we set off for the old hillfort Moel y Gaer.

A lot of heather on the mountain has been has been cut and collected into bundle's,i wonder what they will use it for?

As Julie was feeling poorly we decided to cut the walk short by taking the green lane that contour's horizontal low down on Moel y Gamelin,seen here,to reach Rhewl.

One last look back up to the peak's we had walked over.

We walked 4.5 mile's with 1700 feet of ascent,a great effort by Julie considering how poorly she was.

MILES           69.5
ASCENT       18,250
TOPS             24.

#10.GREAT ORME.23-1-11.

Day 3 of our stay we decided on the Great Orme as we were to meet our son,his girlfriend and our granddaughter in Llandudno later in the afternoon.We had free ticket's to visit Caernarvon Castle which we used and then dashed down the A5 to park up on the West Shore of Llandudno.The chosen path today was the one behind the Toll House.After a short distance we stopped to easily locate the Dawn Recon 1 geo-cache and then hit the steep path that slant's N.E. up to the wall.Give's you great view's and is well worth the effort.

We followed the wall east to reach the disused quarry near the summit complex.Here people "write" there name in the discarded rock's,hey what's this and no i didn't do it.

We followed the tramline back into town stopping to find the micro geo-cache behind the G.O.T. sign.We met up with Rich,Lynz and Eva and had a sunday dinner in Wetherspoons and had a stroll down the pier.

After saying our farewell we walked back to the west shore.Today's distance was 4.5 mile's with 700 feet of ascent.


MILES           65
ASCENT       16,550
TOPS            22

#9.MOEL EILIO,FOEL GRON,FOEL GOCH.22-1-11.

Day 2 of our 3 day jaunt saw us wake to a very frosty morning with the moon setting below Moel Eilio's Braich.

After breakfast in the hotel we nipped into Llanberis for supplies and set off steeply out of the town on the back lane's.We had a little delay as we watched a skip lorry trying to reverse into a farm yard off this narrow lane,first he caught the wall knocking a few stone's off it so he tried again,this time one of the arm's that pick the skip up caught a large ash tree by the farm entrance,but he was not for stopping and carried on,SNAP,a piece of the tree about 20 feet long broke off and fell to the floor.He had just about got the back end of the lorry around the corner but had to stop to move the section of tree that had snapped off,there was just enough room for us to squeeze past and carry on.We got our first glimpse of Moel Eilio soon after.

And a view of Dinas Osian Hillfort,we had no plan's to visit it but it was such a lovely morning that we decided on a detour to it.

Walking in the sun it was quite warm sheltered on this side of the mountain and slowly the layer's were coming off.We soon reached the cairn on top of the hillfort and started to get some great view's.Moel Eilio.

Elidir Fawr and a frosty Llanberis.

And a mini cloud inversion in the Marchlyn Mawr area.

Leaving the hillfort a few runner's past us but we were the only one's walking this fine morning.Gaining height on the Braich as it was so warm unbelievably we were walking now in our tee-shirt's.

It was a similar day today as yesterday,lovely and sunny in the mountain's but misty and dull elsewhere,Anglesey totally hidden under a blanket of cloud.When we reached the fence and started the last climb up to the summit of Moel Eilio the temperature started to dip and we started to layer up.We got a view of Y Eifl (the rival's) "floating" in the cloud's.

Soon we were at the summit cairn and boy it was freezing,it was a little blowy so on with the coat's,glove's and hat's.Julie made a brew whilst i nipped across to quickly find the geo-cache a short way from the shelter.We couldn't take our eye's off the inversion around Y Eifl.

We didn't linger long as it was freezing cold and set off to Foel Gron.We had some great view's across to the Nantlle Ridge,in the distance the Glyderau and ahead to the summit of Yr Wyddfa and it's satellite hill's.

View toward's the Nantlle.

Tryfan making an appearance.

We soon reached Foel Gron and had a lovely view down into Cwm Dwythwch and it's Llyn.

At the bwlch we found some shelter from the wind so we sat in the sun and had a bite to eat.Looking around we could see quite a lot of walker's now taking advantage of the lovely weather.Above us the cloud's looked nice.

The Ground was solid on the northern slope's but was thawing in the sun on the southern flank's and it was a little slippy as Julie was to find out soon.This photo is looking down to Llyn Cwellyn,Nant Colwyn and down the valley toward's Beddgelert.

Leaving Foel Goch the path drop's steeply down to Bwlch Maesgwm,here it was very slippery and i moved across to find some harder ground and was just about to tell Julie to move across to join me and she slipped,she let out a sort of Michael Jackson squeal,threw the trekking pole's away,pirouetted 180 degree's,fell face down on the muddy grass and slid about 10 metre's down the slope and stopped.My first concern was to ask her if she had hurt herself,she hadn't,but she had a fair amount of mud down one side and i had to get a photo.

I collected the trekking pole's and we set off down Cwm Maesgwm.This is a lovely path back to Llanberis passing lot's of old derelict cottage's in the valley.

We left the path and cut across the field's to follow the Afon Arddu to first visit the  Ceunant Bach Waterfall  and then the Ceunant Fawr Waterfall.

A short walk down into Llanberis under the Snowdon Mountain Railway Bridge,with it's ornate twisted arch, and back to the hotel.

The distance was 8 mile's with 2,600 feet of ascent.

MILES       60.5
ASCENT   15,850
TOPS         21