Late on Wednesday evening I had a phone call from my friend Harry asking if I was interested in having a walk up Moel Siabod on Thursday so I met him on the Thursday and drove to Pont Cyfyng where we always start our walk up Moel Siabod from. We must have done this walk many times and in all sorts of weather but Thursday was such a lovely day, dry, warm and no wind so perfect walking conditions.
We walked briskly up the steep hill until we came to the building that has been in the process of renovation for many years, but now it has finally been completed and looks a treat. It's now a holiday rental property and has 3 letting cottages within the property. Just after the next stile the incline levels out and we followed the tramway until we came to the ruins of the old miners cottages where we had our first stop for refreshments. Carrying on for a short while we passed the water filled quarry that looked impressive with the frozen waters and stopped to take some photos. After the snapshots we then followed the path which is also quite steep until we were approaching LLyn Y Foel where we stopped for the final break before taking the difficult and steep loose scree path to the summit. It was at that point that I realised that I had left my favourite gloves by the quarry. I was mad with myself but I had no alternative other than to go back the few hundred yards and retrieve them. My comments to myself are unprintable ####### ##### but they are expensive gloves and are ideal for rock scrambling. Anyway about 15 minutes later I'm back slightly the worse for wear while Harry was as fresh as a Daisy after his rest. The final pull up the scree is never easy and much of it is walking on your toes which really pulls on your calf muscles and the loose scree doesn't help either. At times it seemed like a test of endurance but we did it and the only dangerous part was in the final gully when we had to do some rock scrambling to avoid the frozen ice and snow that lay there. I was glad when we got to the windbreak at the top because the wind had picked up by the gully and it was freezing. A good 15 minute break having our final refreshments and it was time to take the path to Plas Y Brennin and walk back along the river to our car. Another lovely walk completed but what we both said was that we have never seen the path up to Moel Siabod being so dry and the Afon Llugwy seemed to have a lower river level too.