What’s wrong with me two posts in two days. I’ll need a lie down soon.

The met office weather yesterday for Snowdonia was pretty dry so I was hoping for some good views over the Moelwyn mountains.

I drove over from Shrewsbury to a small cafe car park in Tanygrisau leaving about 7:30 in nice dry weather. Unfortunately within about an hour this turned into drizzle. Not daunted I parked up and put on all my wet weather gear hoping that it would clear a bit later on. You can never tell in the mountains and this has happened to me quite a bit in the past.

As visibility was so poor I decided that high contrast black and white would be order of the day. Within a few minutes I was up in the clouds and visibility dropped severally. At least that made for dramatic photos I suppose.

The Ricoh GR II is a great little camera to take up into the mountains. It weighs very little and you can use it one handed. I keep mine in a waterproof Lowe Alpine bag that fits nicely on my waste belt.

The reason I chose this route via Stwlam Dam is the twisty road up that resembles an alpine Tour de France route, a very mini Alpe Du Huez. Which would have worked well if you could see more than about 20 meters.

I slogged up to the dam keeping an eye on my footing. All of a sudden the impressive dam wall loomed out of the mist. I’ll be honest and say it gave me quite a spook as I wasn’t expecting it. The wall is HUGE.

I then headed up to the top of the wall, where a walkway lead to a building. I really like the images I got here. They wouldn’t be out of place in some dystopian sci-fi move.

From here it was a hard slog up to Moelwyn Mawr at 770m. At this point I decided to alter the route dramatically. I had intended going over to a Cnicht but the going was so hard and the weather so poor I decided to head down to some of the abandoned slate quarries instead.

I was getting hungry at this point , actually hangry, so a good job I was on my own today. I was hoping for a break in the rain but couldn’t wait any longer so had to have lunch hunkered down in one of the day ruined buildings in Croesor Quarry.