Geograph Blog

Confirmation of inaccessibility

Richard Law — 2019-09-22T14:31:18+00:00

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-B�l 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!

First-bagging in the National Nature Reserve of Cairnsmore of Fleet

Richard Law — 2013-03-14T10:53:18+00:00

Ever since seeing them from the ridge during a cold February walk with a friend on Cairnsmore of Fleet in 2009 , a group of 8 unGeographed squares in the valleys to the east had been winking at me. I�d rather assumed (wrongly) that they must have been protected by some sort of access restrictions into the National Nature Reserve, but a call to the warden at the Dromore Visitor Centre confirmed that those sorts of archaic conditions genuinely only affect us poor souls in England and Wales. Open access on the hill is pretty much the case in Scotland, subject to a few stalking closures and the like. But not in Galloway, and not in February, so it was �game on� for a weekend.
On this occasion, my mate was struggling with a bad knee, which limited his walking distance somewhat, and he was most interested in picking off Curleywee and Lamachan Hill, the last two unclaimed Southern Upland summits in his copy of the Corbetts book. So he dropped me and a bike at the northern end of the forest track that runs through to Dromore, and went off to do his own thing, with a vague �Text me later, and we�ll sort out when we meet this afternoon�
So the day started with a ride south through the forests of Knocknevis on a well established and well used track, part of Route 7 of the National Cycle Network . At the junction with the track leading to the disused Grannoch Lodge, I hid the bike in a patch of heather (it�ll be fine, it�s hardly worth anything these days�) and walked west then north into the intriguingly-named Cleugh of Eglon just short of Loch Grannoch .
Tough ground across half a mile of Molina grass and moor over Craigherron led to the foot of a 700� climb (including a brief rocky scramble) onto Craigronald Hill , where at least the conditions underfoot became much easier; the sub-zero conditions undeniably helped in that respect. A steady walk west then south in improving weather, past led up onto Meikle Mulltaggart, which needed photographing for the Hill Summits website Link as well as Geograph.
Being a summit, the next section was inevitably downhill, back down towards the damper moorland and Little Mulltaggart between the Carrouch and Mid Burns, passing a well-sited marker cairn and some small rocky outcrops on the way . Thence into the corrie of the Mid Burn, with a great view of the Clints of the Spout, an area of steep ground on the east side of the main Cairnsmore of Fleet hill . This corrie is rather boggy, as the contours suggest, but a couple of hundred yards of tussock-hopping saw me to the small lochan , which issues the Mid Burn , and a choice of dry rocks for lunch a bit further downstream.
A little more bog-trotting as far as the Cardoon Burn , and then it was back onto well made forest tracks for the long walk back to the bike via assorted signs of a working forest and the farm at Cullendoch .
The main walk picked up 8 Firsts; there were also 2 just on (or very close to) the cycle route near Craigwhinne Hill and which fell victim to this long day out. Overall it comprises about 12 miles of cycling and the same amount of walking. Quite a result, but tiring. By the time I�d ridden back to the A712 road at Clatteringshaws dam, my mate had been waiting in the car for little more than 15 minutes.
The whole trip, slideshow and route, is documented fully on Rudi's Geotrips site at Link

A salutary tale

Richard Law — 2011-06-14T07:53:20+00:00

Briefly, the tale behind the taking of this picture near Aberporth.
It was, as you can see, a lovely, sunny day, and after an hour or so, I'd had enough of sitting on the beach (a common enough affliction amongst Geographers, I'd wager.) So I thought I'd 'just have a look around the corner, over there, dear' and see where that took me. Well, after 20 minutes scrambling along the rocks at low tide, I'd rounded the corner into SN2552, as the Research Establishment boundary fence doesn't come down to sea level. It had involved a little bit of simple, low-level traversing, nothing very technical, felt well within my grade, but eventually, just about where this picture was taken, I'd clearly reached an impasse, as the next few yards involved a very reachy and steep black wall up and over a cave. "That's far enough", I thought to myself, took the picture, and set off back down the slab below me.
That, however, proved easier said than done; I must have missed the line that I'd taken coming up, and soon found myself on damp rock, with feet scrabbling for non-existent grip. As any climber will tell you, it's much easier to go up than down. Sure enough, the inevitable soon happened, and the feet pinged off; the handholds weren't enough to hang onto, and I was off into the drink.
Thank God it was low tide, and only thigh deep... and most importantly, the camera stayed dry, so both myself and the image have survived to tell the tale. My advice to anyone else that wants to get into SN2552? Get yourself a kayak!