HILL, DALES AND MOUNTAIN HIKING

14th August 2009: Cnicht    Web page by Bryan Benn

Start/Finish: Croesor car park

Highest Point: Cnicht summit, m

Distance: circa 10 km

Weather: cloud then wind and rain

Vertical altitude gain: circa 650m

Time: 4 hrs 40 mins

Cnicht I do not like walking the hills and mountains in summer: too hot for me! But my local "training walks" at home during summer do need the occasional supplement of a mountain trip. And for this quick visit I had the pleasure of thecompany of Judy Armstong, a hill walker way above my class! But who better than to start the short trip with a walk up Cnicht, otherwise nown as "The Welsh Matterhorn"!
Cnicht
Cnicht Cnicht

The forecast was not good. So we didn't expect many views of Cnicht as we headed up towards it's SW ridge.

Cnicht
Cnicht Cnicht

Looking to the West was a fairly gloomy view over lovely walking territory.

Cnicht
Cnicht Cnicht

Then.for just a short while, the cloud base lifted long enough for us to catch a glimpse of the summit of Cnicht.

Cnicht
Cnicht Cnicht

We climbed over a ladder style and were on the rocky start of the SW ridge: still with the mountain in view in front.

Cnicht
Cnicht Cnicht

The final part of the route up Cnicht is a steep rocky pyramid, which entails some fairly easy scrambling. But as we reached that point the forecast rain and wind arrived. Along with a lowering cloudbase.

Cnicht
Cnicht Cnicht

Just before the cloud base cut the visibilty to a few metres, we could see the start of the short scrambly sections.

Cnicht
Cnicht Cnicht

It was wet and slippery when we got onto the rocks.

Cnicht
Cnicht Cnicht

A close up of the first scramby bit. From here to the two summits of Cnicht, (we did them both), we encounterd "washing machine" weather, heavy rain coming at us from all directions, (Judy's lovely description!). Walking and scrambling up and down was just possible. Taking photographs was not!

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