Foel Grach (967m)

We were out on the remote side of the Carneddau today in wonderful hill walking conditions. Due to it's relatively inaccessible location, the summit of Foel Grach recieves much less visitors than all the other 900m+ peaks in Snowdonia. It's well worth the extra effort involved and (if approached from the east, as we did) takes you across some really wild feeling wide open spaces. 

Approaching from the Conwy valley, we followed the ever steepening and ever narrowing single track road as high as we dared to a parking spot at the end of the tarmac. That drive in itself is quite an adventure! Especially in a brand new long wheel base mini bus! With a certain sense of relief, we left the vehicle behind and set out on foot along a service road to a mountain reservoir, which gently gained us height. 

From half way along the track, we began a diagonal climb across the hillside to gain the high plateau and gentle frozen slopes that led to the summit. The wintery summit of Carnedd Llewellyn looked particularly impressive.

There was loads of ice and frost up high, but not enough snow to need our crampons. We followed a foxes footprints across this snow field...

Up on top, the views were great and all the rocks were rimed with ice.

There is an emergency shelter on the summit, but for us today, it wasn't needed and we enjoyed our lunch, standing in the sun and enjoying the views.

The approaching dark clouds suggested that we shouldn't linger too long though. Having descended for about twenty minutes, we looked back to see the summit had vanished into the clouds!... Good timing...