Hills!

Written by Haydn Williams

In a normal year, a weekend of solo running in North Wales mightn’t warrant an entire blog post. However, this year any chance to get up a hill is a treasure out of which every last morsel of enjoyment must be wrung. So I took a bunch of photos.

Oh boy, this is such a good looking ridge line. The view from Moel Eilio towards Snowdon.
© Haydn Williams 2020
Having descended the Snowdon Ranger path, I went looking for the route up through the woods on the opposite side of the valley. This looks… promising?
© Haydn Williams 2020
Heading up the SE ridge of Mynydd Mawr. It turned out to be a lovely little route.
© Haydn Williams 2020
Second proper uphill of the day.
© Haydn Williams 2020
The boundary between sunshine and cloud, behind me on the Nantlle Ridge. Fortunately I stayed on the sunny side!
© Haydn Williams 2020
Impressive! Craig y Bera, and the Nantlle Ridge beyond.
© Haydn Williams 2020
There’s a scramble in the Steve Ashton Book of Death somewhere around here. It all looks very loose and chossy close up, though.
© Haydn Williams 2020
My first time seeing the view from the top of Mynydd Mawr. No idea why I’ve never been up there before, but the view out to the Lleyn is amazing.
© Haydn Williams 2020
Delightful heathery singletrack follows the technical rough stuff which is found higher up.
© Haydn Williams 2020
Having almost reached the bottom of the last hill of the day (Mynydd Mawr), I was presented with a nice view of the first (Moel Eilio).
© Haydn Williams 2020
Progress ground to a halt at this point. Luckily there was a sneaky side path to get me back to the car.
© Haydn Williams 2020
The next morning – a slog up Drum from Aber, and I find the ponies have beaten me up there.
© Haydn Williams 2020
Just a sheep.
© Haydn Williams 2020
Drum from Foel-fras. Covid rules at the time meant that the left-hand side of the fence (Gwynedd) was open to visitors, but being on the right-hand side of the fence (Conwy) was illegal.
© Haydn Williams 2020
Breakin’ the law, breakin’ the law!
(I’m very sorry, I won’t do it again. I was just one foot. Crime doesn’t pay, kids).
© Haydn Williams 2020
Two days in a row of being on the right side of a weather window. I had about 20 minutes of cloud cover and the rest was lovely sunshine.
© Haydn Williams 2020
Summit of Gyrn Wigau. You’d never deliberately head up there when the rest of the iconic Carneddau are towering over it, but I highly recommend it.
© Haydn Williams 2020
A puzzle to finish the weekend – how can a circular route go in three directions?!
© Haydn Williams 2020

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.