We’ve been doing a fair bit of local explorations this week, in between ‘up-keep’ work on The Cottage and between the showers. Yesterday afternoon we went up nearby Moel y Ci (410m), which was the first time in quite a while for me, in some welcome afternoon sunshine.

There are certainly plenty of signs of Spring in the hedgerows now…

In order to continue following a section of the North Wales path that we’d not hiked together, we drove to Llanfairfechan and set out directly south from the top of the town, straight up into the northern slopes of the Carneddau range.

There’s not much of a path to follow, just a series of stone way markers leading across the saturated ground. It was good to remember to turn around and see the view as we gained height.

Last week, on our way up Foel Grach, we could see (and smell) a lot of hill fires from this direction. Today, we found the scene of the burning – it still smelt freshly burnt. I’m not sure on the who or why, but shoots were already making a comeback from the charred ground.

We had lunch on the summit of Foel Lwyd (603m) – perhaps the smallest mountain in Wales? – according to the popular reasoning that to be classified as a ‘mountain’, it must be over 600m?… The cloud stayed just above head height!

Then a rocky, boggy ridge traverse took us up to the marginally higher ‘Tal y Fan’ (610m).

For a team photo on the summit trig point…

There was a good view down into the Conwy Valley, but the grey skies dulled the colours somewhat.

And over west, to the bigger summits, we identified a few recently ascended peaks, before beginning our descent…

We took a straight line ‘path’ that was more visible on the map than in real life, on the ground, towards the little peak of Moelfre (431m). On the way, we came across a lone memorial to a B24 plane that had crashed here in 1944.

The final section of path was on a much better track that took us through some hill farms as we lost height. There were plenty of fresh lambs doing their frollicking thing, but it seems that Moles are not welcome around here – we passed a fence with 20 or so dead ones, strung out to dry!? Or to warn off other moles? Or perhaps someone was preparing to make a moleskin coat? Who knows… a strange and spooky finish to the trail!

When we got home, I was delighted to discover that I’d come 7th in the Indy Climbing Competition that Clare and I managed to enter after our big day across the Carneddau last weekend. But better than that, was Clare, who was placed 3rd female!