"Left the tarmac road up to the dam where there's a gap in the wall below a high waterfall. I followed the stone wall along for about 20-30 metres and then started a scramble up the rock faces to spice things up. Once up to around 500m there's a vast boggy, grass area to go across before joining up with man made miners trail towards Moelwyn Bach. I then descended Moel-yr-hydd off the East side - there are no trails or paths marked on OS maps. This turned out to be a fun scramble\climb down which ended up near the slate mine ruins. I then discovered a damp wet cave which opened up into a large cavern with a hole in the tope letting the light through. This then went into an even larger cavern which swiftly went down into the mountain. Unfortunately I didn't have my head torch to be able to take a further look. Also no idea how safe it was to be in there or to go down even further. From there I went down a little further which brought me out at the top of a tunnel going down through the rock face and leading steeply down to the tarmac road where I started. This really was an adventure route I had quite literally made up as I went along. I'm glad I didn't do my planned route ..." — adventure-stricken • May 25, 2024

"OS maps showed a trail starting around 400m up near the start point. Absolutely terrible terrain and turned out really difficult to pick up the trail - basically a sheep track leading up to Carnedd y Filiast North Top. The 1st part of the trail is only really obvious after crossing the waterfall section. The trail then supposedly splits off in two directions - again, using GPS it just wasn't there so I ended up going directly through the waterlogged grass and thick heather. Eventually you come across long, large slabs of rock. Some you can climb up, others were too wet and slippy and required a zigzag approach to get around. In the end it took me 3 hrs to complete the 1st 3 miles - all because I didn't want to start on the other side of the mountains below the dam at Elidir Fawr. I had already done that route before and wanted to avoid the long tarmac road in. Also, I wanted to complete all the remaining Welsh nuttalls near by - so it had to be a loop route which still unfortunately meant around 2miles on the tarmac road at the end. " — adventure-stricken • May 24, 2024

"OS maps showed a trail starting around 400m up near the start point. Absolutely terrible terrain and turned out really difficult to pick up the trail - basically a sheep track leading up to Carnedd y Filiast North Top. The 1st part of the trail is only really obvious after crossing the waterfall section. The trail then supposedly splits off in two directions - again, using GPS it just wasn't there so I ended up going directly through the waterlogged grass and thick heather. Eventually you come across long, large slabs of rock. Some you can climb up, others were too wet and slippy and required a zigzag approach to get around. In the end it took me 3 hrs to complete the 1st 3 miles - all because I didn't want to start on the other side of the mountains below the dam at Elidir Fawr. I had already done that route before and wanted to avoid the long tarmac road in. Also, I wanted to complete all the remaining Welsh nuttalls near by - so it had to be a loop route which still unfortunately meant around 2miles on the tarmac road at the end. " — adventure-stricken • May 24, 2024

"OS maps showed a trail starting around 400m up near the start point. Absolutely terrible terrain and turned out really difficult to pick up the trail - basically a sheep track leading up to Carnedd y Filiast North Top. The 1st part of the trail is only really obvious after crossing the waterfall section. The trail then supposedly splits off in two directions - again, using GPS it just wasn't there so I ended up going directly through the waterlogged grass and thick heather. Eventually you come across long, large slabs of rock. Some you can climb up, others were too wet and slippy and required a zigzag approach to get around. In the end it took me 3 hrs to complete the 1st 3 miles - all because I didn't want to start on the other side of the mountains below the dam at Elidir Fawr. I had already done that route before and wanted to avoid the long tarmac road in. Also, I wanted to complete all the remaining Welsh nuttalls near by - so it had to be a loop route which still unfortunately meant around 2miles on the tarmac road at the end. " — adventure-stricken • May 24, 2024

"OS maps showed a trail starting around 400m up near the start point. Absolutely terrible terrain and turned out really difficult to pick up the trail - basically a sheep track leading up to Carnedd y Filiast North Top. The 1st part of the trail is only really obvious after crossing the waterfall section. The trail then supposedly splits off in two directions - again, using GPS it just wasn't there so I ended up going directly through the waterlogged grass and thick heather. Eventually you come across long, large slabs of rock. Some you can climb up, others were too wet and slippy and required a zigzag approach to get around. In the end it took me 3 hrs to complete the 1st 3 miles - all because I didn't want to start on the other side of the mountains below the dam at Elidir Fawr. I had already done that route before and wanted to avoid the long tarmac road in. Also, I wanted to complete all the remaining Welsh nuttalls near by - so it had to be a loop route which still unfortunately meant around 2miles on the tarmac road at the end. " — adventure-stricken • May 24, 2024