North Wales Path from Deganwy/Conwy across the hills looking out to sea. Conwy Mountain/Mynydd-y-Def (247m), Penmaen-bach (245m), Allt Wen (255m). After Alt Wen, and Bodlondeb Wood. Started and ended at sea level from the parking lot at Deganwy Quay Marina.
Total Time: 5 hours 5 minutes; Total Distance: 17.23km; Total Assent: 1,579m
Planned this walk for Saturday, but weather forecast called for thunderstorms, so pushed a day to Sunday. No thunderstorms appeared Saturday, but the weather was fair on Sunday with good visibility and only periods of light rain. On Saturday I had the entire day for a walk and planned to include Pen-y-Fan, making the walk 7 hours. The weather forecast caused a reassessment because of the risk of lightening. Unfortunately, the Sunday walk time needed to be precise at around 5 hours because I was on holiday with the wife and mother-in-law and I needed to meet them at a set time to depart. Weather forecasts were drawn from the Met Office and MWIS.
Walk planning was conducted using OS Explorer map OL 17, and the OS Maps app on my lap top. The Sunday plan was for a 5 hour walk. Completed in 5 hours and 5 minutes.
A focus of this walk, besides enjoying the great views out to sea. was to use the iNaturalist app on my phone to identify plants, particularly flowering plants, to practice identification. I could ID most already, but confirmed a few additional. The Bell Heather, and English Stonecrop were in full bloom. The ground was peppered with Tormentil, Cat's-Ear, and Heath Bedstraw, which made for a colorful ground cover. over looked by Purple Foxglove and the Bell Heather. The Common Heather is a ways off from bloom, as is the Gorse. The Bilberry and Bracken, along with grasses provided a green back drop. I have a Mountain Flowers Hill Walk scheduled for next weekend with Jim Langley at Capel Curig, so this was a good preparation for that Workshop.
Area :
Carneddau
The Carneddau (lit. "the cairns"; Carneddau is a Welsh plural form, and is sometimes anglicised to Carnedds) are a group of mountains in Snowdonia, Wales. They include the largest contiguous areas of high ground (over 2,500 or 3,000 feet (910 m) high) in Wales and England, as well as six or seven of the highest peaks in the country—the Fourteen Peaks. The range also encloses a number of lakes such as Llyn Cowlyd and Llyn Eigiau, and the Aber Falls waterfalls. It is delimited by the Irish Sea to the north, the Conwy valley to the east, and by the A5 road from Betws-y-Coed to Bethesda to the south and west. The area covers nearly 200 square kilometres, about 10% of the area of Snowdonia.
