As always happens at this time of the year I don’t have a recent walk to write about and so I’ve got to delve back more than ten years to describe a walk that I’ve not mentioned before. The problem with these walks from 2004 is that, apart from my holiday in the Lake District, I didn’t make any notes at the time or take any photos. Consequently I am reliant on my sketchy memory and since my holiday of the Spring Bank Holiday 2004 is in an area that I’ve hardly ever been back to I am going to have to raid the internet for someone else’s photo. It is a tragedy that I have not been back to this area as it is a fabulous area for walking and has few visitors. The weather was great all weekend meaning that I had tremendous fun on all three days. The first day was initially spent driving to Wales and once I reached the Dovey Valley I took a narrow road up the quiet valley of Cwm Cywarch. Internet reports describe this as a beautiful valley but all I can remember of it is a sign in both English and Welsh but with the English crossed out. That did not seem very welcoming.
At the end of the road is a large meadow with parking and from there I set off west up the side of the valley. Although there is a right-of-way marked on the map I remember completely losing all trace of it especially after I crossed over a hedge in an attempt to follow the green dotted line on the map. The latest maps show a track that zigzags up the hill and that is what I should have been on, but since it was not on my map I was not aware of it until it swung towards the hillside that I was walking up. After crossing another hedge I was able to join this track that zigzags up the hillside until I finally reached the saddle at the top of the ridge. Turning right I followed the ridge-top fence in glorious sunshine heading roughly north towards Glasgwm whose awesome crags, Craig Cywarch, had been attracting my attention throughout the climb.
Slowly I climbed the broad grassy slopes of Glasgwm until eventually I reached the broad top that is adorned by several small lakes and several small tops (at least it appears to from looking at the map, I can’t remember). Continuing to follow the fence I headed down to the pass that separates Glasgwm from the Aran ridge. The path that comes up to the top of the pass from the valley looks like it could be an interesting climb with close views of the crags amongst a tremendous rock landscape that is giving me an insatiable desire to return to these awesome mountains as soon as possible. From the top of the pass I continued to follow the fence slowly gaining height as I gradually made my way all the way up to the top of Aran Fawddwy. This is one of the highest hills in Wales, but also one of the least well-known, which is a great shame as it lies at the top of a fabulous ridge. I can’t help thinking that I may have had a bit of poor weather at the top of Aran Fawddwy, although it could have been merely low cloud, but even so it may have been the only bad weather I had all weekend.
Turning around I headed back along the craggy ridge until I reached a fence junction where another fence joined onto the one I had been following. Turning to the left to follow this fence I descended to a narrow, grassy ridge high above the valley of Hengwm where a cairn marks the start of the ridge. Although I had forgotten about this the internet reveals that this cairn commemorates a mountain rescuer who was killed during a rescue. At the other end of the narrow ridge a small rise brought me to the top of the grassy hill of Drysgol. There must be tremendous views of the eastern crags of the Aran ridge from this point, but since I didn’t have a camera with me at the time I can only look at other people's pictures and dream.
Coming down the grassy slopes on the other side of Drysgol I found a path that took me gradually down into the Hengwm valley. I do remember it being rather windy at this point because I had been trying out a wide-brimmed hat at that time that I had just bought and I was finding that it wasn’t particularly useful when there is even the slightest wind, which is quite common on mountains. This path brought me all the way down to the road in Cwm Cywarch not far from my car. This walk was just an introduction to the delights that I would be enjoying on this weekend in the southern mountains of Snowdonia. I had tremendous weather, most of the time, and the scenery was first class. The greatest tragedy is that I have never been back.
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