{"id":326,"date":"2018-12-01T20:29:15","date_gmt":"2018-12-01T20:29:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.m1cje.uk\/?page_id=326"},"modified":"2021-07-14T16:20:37","modified_gmt":"2021-07-14T16:20:37","slug":"y-lliwedd-snowdon-yr-aran-2018","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.m1cje.uk\/index.php\/sota-summits-on-the-air\/welsh-summits\/y-lliwedd-snowdon-yr-aran-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"Y Lliwedd, Snowdon & Yr Aran 2018"},"content":{"rendered":"

1st Dec and it\u2019s winter bonus season again.\u00a0 Decided to head up the A5 to North Wales for a weekend in Snowdonia.\u00a0\u00a0Weather was at least not cold but forecast wet and windy.\u00a0 It didn\u2019t disappoint.<\/p>\n

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Last year we did Snowdon from the east up the Pyg track so this year we decided to try the southern approach via Watkins.\u00a0 This gave us the opportunity to add Yr Aran on the return leg.<\/p>\n

GW\/NW-008, Y Lliwedd \u2013 898m, 8 Points<\/h3>\n

 <\/p>\n

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First summit of the day was\u00a0Y Lliwedd.\u00a0 This was the first time I have used the Watkins path, I wasn\u2019t disappointed.\u00a0 Viability was not great but still it was a pleasant approach.\u00a0 Compared with the other Snowdon routes this one was quite quiet.\u00a0 We saw one large party set off just before us but we soon passed them and had the mountain to ourselves.<\/p>\n

We stopped for a moment at Gladstones rock to reflect a little on the history of this route.\u00a0 At least I think it was this one, there are a lot of rocks on this path.<\/p>\n

The final push up to the summit of\u00a0Y Lliwedd is always an interesting climb.\u00a0 The path is a bit like the mountain mists!\u00a0 There are two summit peaks, east and west, both are in the activation zone so either will do.\u00a0 This year we operated from the slightly higher West Peak as we would be turning around to head back up to Snowdon once finished.\u00a0 As we approached the summit we could hear people on the calling channel so didn\u2019t set up the beam but managed to work enough contacts using the Nagoya whip.<\/p>\n

GW\/NW-008 Log<\/h3>\n

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GW\/NW-001, Snowdon \u2013 Yr Wyddfa \u2013 1085m, 10 Points<\/h3>\n

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From\u00a0Y Lliwedd we dropped back down to the Bwlch to pick up the top end of the Watkins again and continue up onto the main summit.\u00a0 I have walked this route a few times in the other direction and always struggled to find the correct route.\u00a0 This was the first time I had walked it in this directions so I had high hopes that I might be able to find the proper path up.\u00a0 It was not to be though, we turned up too soon and ended up emerging right by the upper station building much to our surprise.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The summit was busy as always although we did manage to get on top of the cairn briefly for a photo.\u00a0 It was pretty windy by this time but we found shelter below the cairn to activate the summit.\u00a0 Again we could hear people on S20 so worked directly through the whip antenna.\u00a0 We made eleven contacts before stopping to enjoy lunch before setting off down towards Yr Aran<\/p>\n

GW\/NW-001 Log<\/h3>\n

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GW\/NW-019, Yr Aran \u2013 747m, 6 Points<\/h3>\n

From Snowdon summit we headed southwest down to Bwlch Main.\u00a0 This is a superb ridge walk which makes a fitting exit from the lofty height of Yr Wyddfa.\u00a0 At Bwlch Cwm Llan the main path turns left heading back towards the Watkins but we pressed on south towards Yr Aran summit.\u00a0 There is a path of sorts following the line of the wall.\u00a0 As nothing is marked on the map we turned right at the 90 degree bend in the wall and headed cross country on a bearing for the summit.\u00a0 This is quite a difficult and steep route in the wet and windy conditions, not to be recommended.\u00a0 Instead follow the wall along to the boundary and there is a path up to the summit from there.<\/p>\n

We reached the top with less than an hour of daylight remaining so tried once more to quickly activate the summit from the whip but despite calling repeatedly could hear no one.\u00a0 With the light fading fast we decided to set up the beam in a desperate attempt to get the points before it was too dark to descend.\u00a0 At this point we didn\u2019t know there was a usable path back down and had visions of either trying to descend the route we came up or spending the night on the summit, neither particularly appealing options.<\/p>\n

With the beam up we at last managed to make about six contacts. Unfortunately we had logging issues and lost the details of the first few contacts we made so if I missed you then sorry, please let me know and I will add you to my log.<\/p>\n

GW\/NW-019 Log<\/h3>\n

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Leaving the summit of Yr Aran the light was fading fast so we followed the only path down we could see as we didn\u2019t want to try descending the route we came up by.\u00a0 \u00a0The original plan had been to exit to the east following the high ground as far as possible before descending back down to the Watkins somewhere around the old incline, but without any path marked on the map attempting this in the dark did not seem like such a good option.\u00a0 Instead we opted to retrace our route back down the northern path and onto the main valley route east.\u00a0 Quite a bit longer but much safer.<\/p>\n

Journey Details<\/h3>\n

Date \u2013 1st December 2018<\/p>\n

Postcode \u2013 LL55 4NR<\/p>\n

Parking \u2013 SH 628 507<\/p>\n

Radio \u2013 Kenwood TH-D74<\/p>\n

Antenna \u2013 2 Ele Yagi +\u00a0Nagoya NA771<\/p>\n

Band \u2013 144 FM<\/p>\n

Contacts \u2013 4 + 11 + 4<\/p>\n

SOTA points \u2013 8 + 10 + 6 + 9 bonus<\/p>\n

Group \u2013 Myself & Peter<\/p>\n

Walking Route Summary<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

1st Dec and it\u2019s winter bonus season again.\u00a0 Decided to head up the A5 to North Wales for a weekend in Snowdonia.\u00a0\u00a0Weather was at least not cold but forecast wet and windy.\u00a0 It didn\u2019t disappoint. Last year we did Snowdon from the east up the Pyg track so this year we decided to try the … Continue reading Y Lliwedd, Snowdon & Yr Aran 2018<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":199,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,14,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-326","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","category-north-wales","category-summits-on-the-air","category-welsh-summits"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.m1cje.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.m1cje.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.m1cje.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.m1cje.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.m1cje.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=326"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.m1cje.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/326\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1092,"href":"http:\/\/www.m1cje.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/326\/revisions\/1092"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.m1cje.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.m1cje.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.m1cje.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.m1cje.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}