Snowy Expanse 2010

Make the most of it while it's here.

With the snow determined to come down even more heavily than before, and everywhere running out of salt, only a few major roads remained open. Thankfully, the roads into Fforest Fawr in the Brecon Beacons were kept clear, and that means it's time to pick up at least one mountain that I hadn't visited before, though I had seen it many times. Following that, a visit to a nature reserve by Cardiff gave a nice opportunity to see the effects of the snow on the native woodlands.

• Starting up the slopes at the edge of Fforest Fawr, by the Storey Arms. In taking this picture, I managed to drop my gloves and had to run back from the edge of that distant slope to retrieve them. Gloves are the curse of winter photographers. (Remember those walkers up ahead of us, who took the direct route up the mountain.)
• Top of Glyn Tarell. Hidden in the cloud is Craig Cerrig-gleisiad (629 metres). The weather forecast promised a much higher cloud base, with occasional snow flurries lowering it. Wrong again.
• We took the longer route via Bryn Du, with Paul forging a route over occasionally deep drifts. Somewhere under this, there is a path...
• Up in the clouds at the base of the main climb, we had overtaken everyone, as they had wandered over the slopes in search of a path. This is it, believe it or not. The top of the mountain is ... up there ... somewhere.
• Hoar frost on a rocky outcrop, indicating that we had found the path up the gentler slope at the edge of the steep scarp. The wind was pelting the constant snow towards it so fast that it didn't have a chance to stick.
• Summit cairn at the top of Fan Fawr (734 metres) located without the GPS. I checked just in case and it said the top (which I had roughly marked) was 19 metres away. I followed it to where it thought the top was, and nearly lost sight of the cairn due to the low visibility. Paul donned the rest of his protective clothing - a good move, as any exposed clothing was now coated in frost and snow.
• Nicola demonstrates how not to descend over a drift.
• View animation.
• Kite snowboarding (or snowkiting) on the slopes of Fan Fawr.
• Reaching.
• Attempting some hang time stunts.
• Frozen Tarell tributary.
• Crossing the small stream. I had already sunk up to my waist in the deep drift without touching the bottom. Nicola tried a little further downstream and only sunk up to her thighs; boo.
• Walking the ridge between Fan Fawr and Craig Cerrig-gleisiad.
• Approaching Nant y Gerdinen.
• Continuing along the top of Craig y Fro. The drifts again became very deep, and for a while, we were wading through them to reach the grassy patches. The icy now made the 120 metre cliffs feel a little too close without crampons, so we tacked away from the path for most of the route.
• Frozen cascades.
• Frozen waterfall at the top of the cliffs. It looks only about 3 metres tall.
• Lower Glyn Tarell.
• Returning to the frozen waterfalls of Nant y Gerdinen.
• Frozen shelf below it.
• The waterfall below it was in the process of being buried under the snow.
• The one below had already disappeared under the ice and snow.
• Beautiful icicles on the waterfall below it.
• The bottom waterfall had completely frozen as well.
• Sunlight breaking through the snowstorm. The sledgers had not been put off anyway, and were swarming over the lower slopes.
• Swarm at Gwaun Crew.
• Cwm Crew.
• Cantref Reservoir.
• Panormama of Cardiff from the sledging slopes of Wenallt.
• Residential streets in Cardiff. These roads are never gritted, and without snow chains or snow tyres, everyone waits for enough brave drivers to dig deep enough ruts for them to follow. It's a good excuse to stay away from work. Nicely timed wishful words on a passing lorry...
• Park at the Glamorganshire Canal Nature Reserve.
• The abandoned railway cutting by Coryton.
• Lower bridge.
• Path to Whitchurch.
• Start of the tree-lined fields in the reserve.
• Snow on the tree-line.
• And brambles.
• Snow field.
• Heavily snow and frost-covered trees.
• Path into the beechwoods.
• Beechwoods.
• Grotto under a fallen tree.
• Snow and trees on the steep banks above the canal.
• End of the fields.
• Path to the end.
• Car park at the local supermarket. Normally, you'd struggle to find a parking space. Today, the entire building was almost empty, with almost no staff or customers. Several of the cars were only here because they had been abandoned here - note the snow on their roofs and windscreens.
• Upper bridge.
• A walk through the cutting.
• Fallen trees blocking the path. Just average weather then...

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