Completed the last camp for Scouts Wales silver dragon award on Thursday night. Elected to take on the "above 600m" challenge and so camped at Marchlyn Mawr reservoir in Snowdonia. So this was my site at 640m above sea level:
And some pics from the walk down (the walk up was at dusk so got no pictures). The reservoir and view of Porth Penrhyn, Bangor:
The smaller Marchlyn Bach, mostly frozen:
Self portait with the slopes of Elidir Fawr behind me:
After a steep walk and fairly poor sleep I was very glad to see the Landy again. You can see Caernarfon and the Menai Straight in the distance.
However I had much more adventuring planned so was straight off to Dinorwic Quarry. This is the view southward from the viewpoint at the main splitting shed. The lake is Llyn Peris and the pass is the Llanberis pass with the Glyders on the left and Snowdon range on the right. The buildings and vehicles in the lower foreground belong to the First Hydro pumped storage hydroelectric power station:
From there we went to Dali's hole. This had been fenced off with a massive new fence, to protect the site during filming of "Clash of the Titans" (now completed). There were several other ways round though, so in we went:
The lake was an incredible azure colour - amazing. From there we took the big tunnel through and out into the next cavern (can't remember the name). The massive metre square chockstone in the roof of the tunnel had fallen and was almost blocking the exit to this first tunnel - I've got a photo somewhere of me standing under that stone - a scary thought! This is the view from that fallen chocksone across to the next tunnel:
There is an abseil here into the big hole followed by a long underground tunnel that leads to a small foxhole exit, but we left that for another day. Our first big goal was this:
It's a tunnel through a rock face left by quarrying operations, and only accessible this end by a chain left hanging from the entrance. A ruddy hard climb brings you into the tunnel. The view from the top of the climb:
A short (stooped) walk brings you to the other side where a handy Ash tree secures a short abseil back down into the Dali's hole area. We then walked through Anglesey Barracks. This is a wierd ghost town terrace in the middle of the quarry, used for workers from Anglesey during quarry operations. I didn't get a photo of this but it's worth a look on Google images. On the path down through the woods we saw some feral Snowdonia goats with simply massive horns:
We then took the very greasy inclined railway line down to Vivian Quarry. Footing was treacherous with wet leaves covering slate (all on a 40 degree incline). Vivian quarry itself is an amazing spot (Google images it) - I'm sorry I was so busy brewing up I forgot to take photos
The incline:
After Vivian quarry, we walked out along the road splitting the lakes, passing amazing view across Llyn Peris...
We then headed towards Dolbadarn castle. Sadly the spiral staircase had been gated off half way up since last time I'd been - the kill-joy police hard at work it seems So we couldn't get fully up to the top like you used to be able to.
After this we headed back to Pete's Eats in Llanberis for massive fried breakfasts all round A great end to a great day out.
Thanks so much to Iain, Dan, Kev and Mike for joining me.
And some pics from the walk down (the walk up was at dusk so got no pictures). The reservoir and view of Porth Penrhyn, Bangor:
The smaller Marchlyn Bach, mostly frozen:
Self portait with the slopes of Elidir Fawr behind me:
After a steep walk and fairly poor sleep I was very glad to see the Landy again. You can see Caernarfon and the Menai Straight in the distance.
However I had much more adventuring planned so was straight off to Dinorwic Quarry. This is the view southward from the viewpoint at the main splitting shed. The lake is Llyn Peris and the pass is the Llanberis pass with the Glyders on the left and Snowdon range on the right. The buildings and vehicles in the lower foreground belong to the First Hydro pumped storage hydroelectric power station:
From there we went to Dali's hole. This had been fenced off with a massive new fence, to protect the site during filming of "Clash of the Titans" (now completed). There were several other ways round though, so in we went:
The lake was an incredible azure colour - amazing. From there we took the big tunnel through and out into the next cavern (can't remember the name). The massive metre square chockstone in the roof of the tunnel had fallen and was almost blocking the exit to this first tunnel - I've got a photo somewhere of me standing under that stone - a scary thought! This is the view from that fallen chocksone across to the next tunnel:
There is an abseil here into the big hole followed by a long underground tunnel that leads to a small foxhole exit, but we left that for another day. Our first big goal was this:
It's a tunnel through a rock face left by quarrying operations, and only accessible this end by a chain left hanging from the entrance. A ruddy hard climb brings you into the tunnel. The view from the top of the climb:
A short (stooped) walk brings you to the other side where a handy Ash tree secures a short abseil back down into the Dali's hole area. We then walked through Anglesey Barracks. This is a wierd ghost town terrace in the middle of the quarry, used for workers from Anglesey during quarry operations. I didn't get a photo of this but it's worth a look on Google images. On the path down through the woods we saw some feral Snowdonia goats with simply massive horns:
We then took the very greasy inclined railway line down to Vivian Quarry. Footing was treacherous with wet leaves covering slate (all on a 40 degree incline). Vivian quarry itself is an amazing spot (Google images it) - I'm sorry I was so busy brewing up I forgot to take photos
The incline:
After Vivian quarry, we walked out along the road splitting the lakes, passing amazing view across Llyn Peris...
We then headed towards Dolbadarn castle. Sadly the spiral staircase had been gated off half way up since last time I'd been - the kill-joy police hard at work it seems
So we couldn't get fully up to the top like you used to be able to.
After this we headed back to Pete's Eats in Llanberis for massive fried breakfasts all round
A great end to a great day out.Thanks so much to Iain, Dan, Kev and Mike for joining me.
