Eleven members and two guests assembled at the car park on Bwlch Oerddrws SH802170 to ascend Waun-oer. Unhappily, having driven through bright sunshine in Dolgellau, we found that the Waun-oer massif was shrouded in cloud. Dafydd Hughes helpfully mentioned that the BBC Weather chart showed our objectives as the only part of Wales to have cloud and rain through the day!
The initial path was waterlogged – Betty Rhys entertained us by falling off a slippy stone backwards into the bog. Then it was a rather steep and slippery ascent to the disused quarry at Cloddfa Gwanas. The view into the mist filled quarry added atmosphere to the walk. From the quarry the ridge is relatively flat for a while, before a drop to a col then steep ascent to Waun-oer where we took a cool, breezy lunch stop.
After lunch we had to retrace our steps to Cribin Fawr, before turning south-eastwards on the ridge to Craig Portas, Craig Rhiw-erch and Maesglase. The cloud persisted, spoiling the [presumably] superb views down to Cwm Cerist. The ground underfoot was ‘interesting’, a grassy track interspersed with deep bogs and steep peat hags – it reminded me of the moors in my native Lancashire. One of our visitors, Estelle [now a member] is a Mountain Leader and tracked our progress in the right direction using map & compass, whilst the Clwb Dringo leader did the same using pre-set waypoints on his GPS! Happily both methods gave the same results.
After Maesglase, the cloud began to lift and we were treated to some splendid and dramatic views. A highlight along the way was crossing the top of the spectacular waterfall down Craig Maesglase. We were impressed to learn that our guest Jill Sumner’s late husband [John] had made the first winter ascent of the waterfall in a hard winter some years ago.
It was apparent after crossing Craig Maesglase that the light was beginning to fade so the plan was changed from heading over Foel Dinas to Dinas Mawddwy to descending down Cwm Maesglase, along a good farm track. A final, long, mile along the A470 finished in the bar of the Red Lion. We had left a couple of cars in the pub car park, so the return to Bwlch Oerddrws was swift and comfortable!