Wales - 2014
24 December 2014 ........... Elidir Fawr and Carnedd Filiast
After a rather grey week when the cloud base sat away down on Snowdonia, we finally had a day when the tops appeared - well for some of the time they appeared.
So I went for a quick trip to Elidir Fawr and round the horseshoe to Carnedd Filiast.
Up the road from Deiniolen, then just before the first reservoir I headed up the flank of the north ridge of Elidir Fach, and as I topped onto the ridge, Elidir Fawr appeared before me.
Except that it didn`t - it was in cloud.
Dam !
Oh well, I am here now, I might as well carry on, it really would be quite difficult to get lost on Elidir Fawr in the cloud - it is a long rocky ridge with a very obvious stone circle at the summit - then you head down the other end of the ridge.
But as I climbed up the side of the ridge, the cloud slowly lifted, and I never reached it - by the time I got there, the summit was just clear of cloud.
Magic !
By the time I had a cup of tea, the Glyders had just about thrown off the cloud as well -
Snowdon never appeared all afternoon, Crib Goch came and went, and the Carneddau never quite made it out of the cloud.
However much more interesting was the lighting down to the southwest - the heavy dense cloud layer that was covering Snowdonia had an abrubt end somewhere down the Lleyn Peninsula, and it led to some nice lighting effects.
These pictures are all a bit under-exposed in order to capture the lighting effects, rather than the nearer hills - it wasn`t really dark.
Heading off now to the east to drop down to Bwlch Brecan, and the view of the wide flat ridge that joins Mynydd Perfedd and Carnedd Filiast.
Up on Mynydd Perfedd now looking southeast over Foel-goch to Y Garn, and the cloud is back down over the rest of the Glyders, even Tryfan has a hat on now.
Turning round - and a somewhat surprising view of Elidir Fawr - when you see it from a distance, Elidir Fawr looks to be a large domed hill - I wonder how many people who know their mountains would recognise this as Elidir Fawr ?
The walk across the ridge to Carnedd Filiast was a bit of a nightmare - the very strong cold wind was blowing diagonally right along and across the ridge, and even an infinite amount of clothing would not have been enough - if I had known it was going to be this bad, I wouldn`t have come round the horseshoe, I would have dropped off Elidir Fawr down to the dam instead.
One of the problems with this horseshoe is that once you have started, there is no escape - the reservoir is in a rather steeply sided cwm, so there isn`t an obvious route down, and neither is there an obvious route round the reservoir at a low level.
So I just had to carry on, eventually getting to the summit of Carnedd Filiast, where I didn`t hang about - except to take this picture - Elidir Fawr had gone !
So I guess I was pretty lucky with my timing up and over Elidir Fawr - it`s good when something goes right !
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