Took ourselves on a tour of the Elan Valely and surrounding area today, to check out some of the sights and a few more of the climbs. This time, we parked above the dam, to prevent being locked into the car park which shuts at 5pm. We climbed until the sun went down behind the hills and the rock was bathed in evening light and warmth.
We waited until later in the day to climb, so that the rock would be nice and warm, which was well worth it.
Before then, we spent the morning higher up the valley, checking out the other dams and reservoirs.
At the head of the valley, it felt super wild, with nothing but a winding road, river and empty valley.
After a good walk along the banks, we stopped and relaxed in the sun by the waters edge.
There were some really deep pools and on a different day, they would have been superb swimming spots, but neither of us fancied it with the arctic wind. Having said that, some bloke, did strip off and bombed into one of the pools, seemingly unaffected by the temperatures. Good effort.
We made us of the van facilities while we were there to brew up a wilderness coffee.
Our previous walk, that we did during the morning took us along the banks of 'Craig Goch' to the Craig Goch Dam.
The route passes through a canyon called the Devil's Gulch, which looked even worse than some of the rock climbing - in fact it had fallen down recently!
The island looked really good as, unlike the surrounding hills, had not been grazed by sheep, so had plenty of pine trees. It would have been nice to paddle out there but boats are forbidden. All in all a nice day of exploration and some good climbs to finish with.
Climbs at Craig Cwnch:
- Last Tango in Powys. 5+
- Children of a Lesser Gogg, 6a
- We've Only Just Begun, 6a+*
No comments:
Post a Comment