carneddau

He did mention that his boots had a Goretex lining whereas my trusty Inov8 Roclite 315 did not. I kind of wished that I put the Seal Skinz in my Talon 44 but as the weather was warm, clear and bright it didn’t matter that my feet stayed damp, sodden in fact, whilst we were away. The upside of having wet feet was that I stayed on them unlike my companion, Liam, who seemed to take great pleasure in diving into marshy bog grass and clumps of star moss at will. I could be mistaken but I thought at the time we were there to brush up on our crossing open country skills for next years TGO challenge not to get some training in for a bog snorkelling competition.

On the subject of the Challenge I was reminded on Friday morning that the dreaded midge loves my blood for breakfast. Liam asked me to stand next to him to distract the blighters whilst he ate his cereal bar, at a far too leisurely pace for my liking.


The great thing about the Carneddau is that, apart from the impromptu bog snorkelling practice opportunities the massif presents, there are fewer people about. Now this might just be down to the fact that everyone apart from us had figured out if you want bug free, firm footed walk you're better off across the A5 on the Glyders. And as we started our jaunt on a week day we only met one other bog trotter all day.

With a few ideas for possible wild camps from him we waded our way up to Gwaun y Garnedd the saddle between Carneddau Llewellyn and Foel Grach. Bog trotting across open countryside and going up hill was slow going and we frequently stopped to look back at the unfolding view. From Foel Grach we continued on to Garnedd Uchaf and then followed the ridge out to Drogsl before heading back to Bera Mawr to find a lumpy pitch large enough for our shelters and a guaranteed uncomfortable nights sleep. With the sun heading home for bed for the night we cooked supper and Liam baked some bannock.

Armed with cameras and mobile phones we squelched our way around to a suitable spot and snapped away as the sun set enjoying our first cloud inversion.

Despite packing my NeoAir the guaranteed uncomfortable night was duly had. The day dawned better than the previous day with more sun and little cloud but I wanted to get full value from the lumpy ground and was slow to rise. I’d used a zip lock washing machine on my socks the evening before and they were almost dry. Obviously they didn’t stay that way for long. Over breakfast we concocted a plan; we’d walk over Drogsl and down into Bethesda for a can of coke before heading back to the car.