Your way. Well we tried. We mislaid the path twice in the outward route. We missed a fork to the right that left us clambering through large boulders down beside the wall. We later missed a left turn resulting in a steep scramble ahead of the main final ascent. Both issues were worked out immediately afterwards during that ascent, and on the descent we nailed the correct route in full!
Very nice route; proper mountain stuff - great!
What an absolutely stunning winter’s day to get out to the far side of Snowdonia and complete activating all GW (again).
Of course we thought we’d finally completed GW back in May with an activation of Disgwylfa Fawr GW/MW-038 - but then the RHB surveyors promoted Rhinog Fach from HEMA to SOTA GW/NW-078.
This actually turned out to be a good thing for us (well me really). Because now I can claim to be the first to have activated every SOTA in GW! (With Jimmy 2nd, five minutes later).
Of course my tongue is in my cheek; John GW4BVE was the first to activate all GW. But I’ll take whatever spurious accolade I can - which could be temporary until if/when they discover another one!
Well done both of you. Glad that you could re-complete your completion of Wales. M0JLA has got to go there to deal with NW again (I still have Tryfan outstanding) but we are waiting for longer and warmer days (and for people to improve the path but he is talking of attacking it by a different route…!) We had vague hopes for a s2s with you from GW/SW-013 Tor y Foel but couldn’t stay much beyond 1200 as my very croaky voice needed a dose of hot soup (in the car), it was very cold even slightly out of the wind and we wanted to get off the next hill, GW/SW-007 Fan Nedd in daylight. Sorry to have missed you but luckily we chased it from the first activation, I believe, so all we have to do is get up the darn thing (and possibly down again!).
Look forward to further s2s from you both and wish you a Happy Christmas and a Healthy New Year.
73 Viki M6BWA
Thanks Viki, best wishes to you and Rod too. Are you out activating Christmas Day morning?
Hi Viki, it’s not bad at all. Bit steep in a few spots, so hard on the legs and lungs, but it’s not rocky or exposed (well if you follow where I went).
You can go even further south from my route to Llyn Hywel and come up the south ridge of Rhinog Fach, but it’s no easier that going up to the north shoulder from the west where I went and Tom/Jimmy did too. However, the fairly unpleasant steep, heather covered slope directly to the north is best avoided if possible. I’ve only been down that way once about 20 years ago and vowed to find a better alternative, which I did.
No, Tom I don’t do mornings as you will have noticed from the time we start activating! Fingers crossed, the turkey goes in and we go off for a gentle local cycle ride - but not sure the weather will behave (who wants to cycle in rain on Christmas morning?) It may have to be the jigsaw puzzle - or sowing the sweet pea seeds which should have been done a couple of weeks ago… when we were on a hill or two!!
73 Viki
Escaping Turkeys before they are put into ovens?
Thanks Gerald for the advice and glad to see you activated about 10 days ago. Are you going to post any details and even a map showing your track as, looking at the 1:50K map it isn’t obvious - but no hurry, we don’t expect to be there before about July (unless other plans are thwarted yet again)? All the best for 2022 including lots of dry and lofty SOTA summits!!
73 Viki
Hi Viki
I’ve put the route as a track on SOTA Maps. It’s also got a full description.
Happy to email track or map segment if that’s more useful.
73
Gerald
It’s straightforward Viki. Walk from the parking spot along the track then path to pass between Rhinog Fach (left) and Rhinog Fawr (right). Turn left (south) to continue walking around Rhinog Fawr then turn left again to take the steeper path up to the summit ridge.
I thought that now is the time to revive this topic becuase back in May 2021, me and my dad Tom @M1EYP thought we have activated all GW SOTA summits when we activated Disgwylfa Fawr GW/MW-038. However later that same year Rhinog Fach become a Marilyn and therefore become a SOTA summit and was given SOTA reference GW/NW-078 which me and my dad managed to activate in December 2021 and once again back then we both thought that we have finally manage to activate all GW SOTA summits.
It now turns out that yet again, we still haven’t activated all GW SOTA summits becuase when a survery took place last, it was found that Mynydd Y Grug was higher than Mynydd Machen GW/SW-030 and as a result Mynydd Machen GW/SW-030 was removed from the SOTA programme on the 1st March 2026 and Mynydd Y Grug was given SOTA reference GW/SW-042 from 2nd March 2026 (SOTA’s 24th Aniversay). This means that we now need to activate GW/SW-042 in order for us to complete GW for SOTA for a 3rd time which is kind of a concidence as a we compelted all G SOTA summits 3 times previously.
As Mynydd Y Grug GW/SW-042 isn’t daytripable for us, I have booked off from work Monday 1st June til Friday 5th June from work and I spend a lot of time recently outside of my working hours browsing booking.com to try and find some suitable accodomation for us. I was really struggling to find anywhere suitable on booking.com and then it occured to me to look on Air BnB and I managed to find on there this penthouse very close to the town centre of Caerphilly which is perfect for us as this is within walking pubs and restuarants of an evening and therefore shouldn’t have much of an issue getting a meal or a beer anywhere in the evenings. I have now booked to stay at this penthouse in Caerphilly from Sunday 31st May until Wednesday 3rd June and travelling back home Thursday 4th June. Something I have noticed with South Wales is that the majority of pubs there for some reason choose not to serve food on Sunday evenings. Luckily in Caerphilly, most restuarants are open on Sunday evenings, but quite a few are shut though Monday and Tuesday evenings. However, there looks to be a handful of places open in Caerphilly on the Monday and Tuesday evening where we can get some food.
Obviously our main priority while in the area is to activate Mynydd Y Grug GW/SW-042 to complete all GW for a 3rd time and not sure yet which of the days we will be activating this SOTA summit, but it will be the day which has the best of the weather. I plan to activate this SOTA summit on 2m FM and my dad plans to activate this SOTA summit on 2m SSB and expect that there will be some HF involved as well so please work us on the bands if you are able to for our special SOTA activation. When we completed GW SOTA summits the 2 times previously, both activations took place during COVID19 restrictions to which I felt very unconfortable seeing anyone mainly due to having to observe social distancing and therefore didn’t really want anyone joining us during of previous 2 GW SOTA completions. However, now that there is no COVID19 restications, I am happy for any SOTA activator who wishes to join us on Mynydd Y Grug GW/SW-042 to celebrate us completing all GW for a 3rd time to do so and happy for any SOTA activator to join us for any other SOTA activations that we do while in the area and for any meals or drinks of an evening also.
We haven’t really planned yet what other SOTA summits we will be activating while in the area with the exception of maybe activating Burton Hill G/WB-020 on our way home so that my dad can finally make some QSOs from this summit (see Drew a blank ). The good thing about staying in Caerphilly is that there are loads of very easy GW/SW SOTA summits nearby. There is the possibility that my dad may activate some GW/SW SOTA summits himself without me if there is times when the weather isn’t great as my dad doesn’t mind the odd bit of rain where as I for one cannot stand the rain at all.
Jimmy M0HGY
It would be nice to catch up. Drop me a message or add a comment to this post.
Kevin
Congratulations, that is a nice achievement.
