Snowdonia wild camp - A long overdue revisit

The long range weather forecast had hinted at a reasonable pattern of weather and the Mountain Weather Forecast also came into alignment a few days out and then finally resulted in something to implement a wild camp trip.

Credit www.mwis.org.uk

Credit www.mwis.org.uk

With sunset and sunrise azimuth to the NW and NE, the views of northern aspects of hills, scarps and cwms come into play,  moorland flora would be in flower and the wind would keep the no-see-ums at bay. Consulting the 'to visit list' and 'must revisit again in better weather list'  and the Cadair Idris massif made a compelling case, especially so with the visibility. My last wild camp trip here in 2010 had been disappointing and hopefully this time the weather would cooperate.

Parking up and my initial planned 'as the crow flies' route, was revised in view of the recent heavy rainfall turning streams into torrents and the bracken instead of being waist high was over head height. I must be getting older and wiser, as it seemed sensible to take a more circuitous and cautious ascent and hope the bog moorland wouldn't be too wet. However, recent heavy rainfall ensured that the moorland was thoroughly saturated, but not too 'tussocky' and I quietly congratulated myself on deciding to wear the Big Boots, as I needed the height in places to keep my feet dry.

Bog cotton and bog asphodel in their type environ

The cloud level was just above the summit tops and from bitter experience likely to lower during the evening/night, so ambitions of a high pitch were lowered to a base camp pitch with options to go high if the cloud stayed high.

A fine tent pitch next to a stream was chanced upon, the tent pitched, photo gear sorted and then off for a wander. Away from the madness of Snowdon, Glyderau and Carneddau, the rest of the Snowdonia National Park see's very little footfall or internet traffic, which is a good thing as there's still some potential for quiet contemplation of the scenery and originality of views. On this trip I saw precisely no one and enjoyed every moment of solitude, even the rain had the decency to drench every other visible summit and hold off until I was ensconced in the sleeping bag.

This area has some interesting geology to mull over - ignimbrites, debris flows, cleaved mudstones, intrusive magmas, extrusive magmas, pillow lavas, to name but a few that make up the bedrock, which is Ordovician in age and makes for a colourful geology map.

www.bgs.ac.uk 1:50K geology map screen grab for illustrative purposes

There were one or two outcrops that presented some food for thought, magma intruding into wet sediments, and subaqueous pyroclastic flows settling onto wet sediment produce a lot of steam, entrained vapour and degassing, which gives rise to some unusual looking geology. There's something unintuitive with the concept of pyroclastic ash flows travelling some distance underwater and yet still retaining enough heat (500+ deg C) to 'weld' on settling. Given the thickness of the silica rich tuff beds and their coverage on the geology map, these were large, violent explosive eruptions and on more than one occasion.

There are also a suite of glacial and periglacial landforms to interpret and fit together a plausible chronology of Devensian events and given the elevation above current sea level, an indication of the thickness of glacial ice that covered this area.

There were enough breaks in the cloud to let light play over the landscape and I had the wit to bring along a tele zoom this time, to take advantage of some distant views and also for some images of the flora. There was a noticeable reduction in the numbers of sheep since my last visit and certainly way less than in the Brecon Beacons National Park, which is a good thing, as there were signs of flora making a recovery with less grazing pressure. It was unexpected surprise to see a small number of heath/moorland spotted orchids dotted about and given a few more years of reduced grazing pressure their numbers should increase to quite a display.

A look out the tent at some unearthly hour in the pre dawn light, revealed the hills blanketed in fog and a blanket of high cloud.  So, no summit attempt, alarm reset and plenty of time to snooze up a plan.

The weather conditions were slightly improved at the next alarm call, I ventured forth, with a plan. Sunrise was a non event, though the sun did rise into a cloud break to let some light in.

I thought about a trip up onto the hills, but settled for exploring the base of the escarpment, before a leisurely decamp and descent back to the car.