Trip Report : Cader Idris

There is something about Cader that has the old friend about it. Possibly the fact that I only have a July visit left to see its trig point in every month of the year has something to do with it but today was not one of its crowning moments. The week long forecast for today being the best of the weekend broke on Sun evening and the high level cloud though "dry" was not clever and the wind was biting.

The loop from Minffordd is the obvious choice if taking in all 5 tops with only one driver and the and the stiff climb up though the woods is a great way to start the day. The path is easy and visible once you leave the trees behind but care is needed as you approach the large rock short of Llyn Cau else you miss the track up onto the ridge.

Path repair is ongoing with focus currently about 500m from joining the ridge as it steepens, its expected to take a while I think give the wooden hut that has appeared complete with tools and benches for the staff.

Diving off for one of 6 Geocaches immediately on the route the summit of Craig Cwm Amarch is the first stop. Onward again and after the col bear off at the fourth cairn to traverse under the main summit for Cyfrwy and another cache. A retrace and its on to the main summit and across it via 3 caches to Mynydd Moel.

Care is required in mist on leaving here initially to avoid walking off a cliff then a little later to ensure you don't cut into a valley instead of reaching the ridge to Gau Graig the final summit. remember as you approach to cross over the stile onto the right of the fence to get firmer ground.

Descent is easily off the end and round or the steeper right turn and aim direct. Either way you hit the road and the final cache before diving off on an old alignment back to the car

Photos

Geotagging Photos

If like me you use Flickr you might have tried geotagging your photos. While this is easy in urban areas with clear buildings or monuments the same is not true of the uplands with most of GB covered only at satellite level.

However if you also use a GPS and keep a tracklog there is another alternative. Sanoodi, offers a free service aimed at runners and walkers interested in sharing GPS tracks as a logbook. The site is interesting in itself however it is the interaction with Flickr that caught my eye when it showed up as a referrer for one of my photo.

It works in two ways first it pulls in any public geotagged photo in the vicinity of your route but second and more important it allows you to take a GPX file upload it to the site then match the EXIF data from a Flickr set and locate where your photo was taken.

Its not perfect you need to approximately locate the first photo but a snap of your gps after it locks on as a working photo does the trick nicely. The main downside is a formulaic comment on the photo page linking back to the walk. It also only reads data from an uploaded Active track on Garmins save the track and the required data is lost.

It does however take alot of guesswork out of locating those remote photos

Returning to the Radnor Forest

There is something about this simple circuit above New Radnor that keeps pulling me back. 20 minutes from home and a 3.5 hour round trip makes for an easy half day and its no surprise that it was the first set of hills that I have climbed in every month of the year.



Sunday was no different a simple walk past a local resident spray jetting the mud off the track up to his house, catching a mixed age group (youngest in a carrier eldest past retirement) and a steady open walk all the way.



Cloud could have stayed away but at least it was high. A nice simple start to the new year

Todays Photos on Flickr