Tarren y Gesail, GW/NW-033 - 667m ASL - SH 711 059 - OS Explorer OL23 - 4 SOTA points            

Thursday 28th February 2013, and The Traverse of The Tarrens!  What a day, what a challenge, and to think we once set off from Macclesfield with Richard G3CWI to do them as a day trip!  Ha, no chance.  As luck would have it on that day, Jimmy and I forgot to put our walking boots in Richard's car, so we had to replan for trainer-friendly SOTAs - and so we did Cyrn-y-Brain GW/NW-043 and Moel y Gamelin GW/NW-042 instead!

On this particular occasion, we only had to drive a short way south from The Royal Ship Inn in Dolgellau, where we began the day with a quite magnificent breakfast.  Cereals, croissants, toast, preserves, fruit, tea, coffee, cheeses, cooked meats and a full traditional cooked breakfast.  This superb feast would be the start to our day for the next three days as well!  Jimmy directed me down the A493 towards Tywyn, which brought back happy memories of my childhood camping holidays there.  The B4405 took us inland along the Talyllyn Railway to Abergynolwyn, from where we turned south-south-west and up steeply on a minor road.  At the end of this, I parked on a small area at the side of the road before setting off walking down the byway towards Bryn-Eglwys Quarry.

From this point, it took us a long time to find the correct route out.  Several false starts and retraced steps wasted significant time.  Finally we hit upon the correct track through the lower forest.  But more obstacles were to follow.  On the marked track in the sloping field at SH698053 (marked "Fords" on the OS 1:25000 sheet), Jimmy progressed OK, but I struggled to get past the bogs.  And then for the first time ever, I found myself stuck in one!  The right foot sunk in, the left foot sunk in, then water and peaty mud flowed around my lower legs and clamped them hard up to about 4 inches above my boots.  It was like quick-drying concrete, and it had got me!

I called Jimmy back to alert him to the problem, but told him to stay off the bog when he was coming to try and help me!  I recalled what it had said in The Hillwalkers Manual, a recommended book I had read back when I first started SOTA.  I removed my coat and rucksack, and sat back on them, leaning back.  Suddenly, my feet rose up and cleared the bog - it worked!  It was still a tricky task to get to my feet and get over the rest of the bog, but I made it, and vowed to be a little more careful where I was putting my feet thereafter!

A faint trodden path began to climb up the rough grassy slopes and follow the forest edge close to Pont Llaeron.  It screamed "baggers' path" at me and I suggested we follow it.  This provided good going until the forest corner at SH704050, whereafter all tracks soon faded out and we needed to pick our own way up the hill.  All we could see were steep, high grassy slopes in front of us.  We tried to pick out intermediate zigzags as we slowly gained the height, but it was slow and very tiring work.  There was warm sunshine out and I was walking in shirt sleeves, February or not!  The slope seemed never ending, but attaining the end of the ridge at SH705058 and seeing a much more graded walk ahead to the now visible trigpoint was motivating.

We were soon at the summit and setting up.  Jimmy made 6 contacts just using his VX-110 handie on 2m FM, while I made 31 QSOs on 40m CW including several S2S.  Soup of the day was the delicious smokin' chicken and bacon.  Time was cracking on, and I couldn't give Jimmy the assurance that we would definitely get the intended second activation of Tarrenhendre GW/NW-036 completed.  We agreed to defer the decision until the point further around the ridge where the direct route from Tarrenhendre's slopes led back to the car.

Although the grassy slopes were steep, I found it easier than anticipated to get down to the end of the ridge at SH716053.  The next section of the walk, along this ridge by Foel y Geifr and Mynydd Rhyd-galed, was very good going and enjoyable.  At the ladder stile at SH696040, I checked the time, and gave the go-ahead for the activation of Tarrenhendre GW/NW-036.  Somewhat stupidly, I had not packed any headtorches, so we would be cutting it fine in terms of available hours of daylight.