Confirmation of inaccessibility
A week-long holiday in Trefdraeth, I thought, might give me a fighting chance of picking up the two still-green squares of SN0442 and SN0543 on the coast just to the north of Newport Sands. It appeared from the maps that, steep as the access obviously was, it might just be possible to sneak into either of them from the south in each case.
The first attempt was at SN0543. On the Tuesday afternoon, I took an illicit but quick bike ride along the coast path to scope things out, and dropped off the path near SN05794282, down ever-steepening slopes of gorse, bracken and grass. Then I reached the top of rocks - it was clear there was no straightforward way down those without wings. Traversing right/east eventually brought me to the nearest you can really get to SN0543 at which point you're climbing back uphill anyway, and the hillside itself is pretty steep
&
.
There are no obvious belays to attach a rope into and abseil, or anything - not even a half-decent bush.
The second attempt, a few days later, was to try & get into SN0442. Sea-level in the square to the south actually isn't that hard to reach - a bit of scrambling and down-climbing and you're there. But that's followed by some rather alarming deep-water soloing and traversing above the tide levels, which even when it's essentially flat calm out to sea, feels a tad intimidating
,
Happy as I generally am with climbing and traversing (have soloed VS in the past) I simply couldn't justify the risk of a dunking on the last day of the holiday; it might have taken rather too much explanation to the other half. A quick look into the bay of Traeth-y-Bāl suggests there 'may' be a way down there and then along the lower cliffs further north, but I give no guarantees on that one.
The nett result of all this investigation suggests that these two squares are better left to the intrepid sea-kayakers of this parish. Over to you, Toby Speight!
- When
- Sun, 22 Sep 2019 at 15:14
- Chosen Photo
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