Geocaching on Cadair Idris

by Alan Cole · Tuesday, November 18th, 2008

I haven’t been for a walk in the hills for ages so decided to head off to the north side of Cadair Idris on Saturday for a walk and to do some geocaches.

I parked at Ty Nant and walked back along the road a little way to the Gwernan Hotel and the start of the Foxes path. It was pretty wet and as soon as I started gaining some height the clouds smothered me and visibility was pretty low. It wasn’t in any rush and I’d never been up this path before so I took my time and took in what little I could see of my surroundings. After about 45 minutes I reached the stream that was coming from Goat Lake (Llyn Gafr) only to find that it was a raging torrent. There was no easy way across so I had no choice but to wade through with water up to my thighs.

The first geocache of the day was nearby (Cadair Idris – Goat Lake) and I found it easily before heading on up a steeper climb towards Llyn y Gadair and a second gecoache (Cadair Idris – Llyn y Gadair). Once again there was another very wet river crossing just before the cache… I was being made to work hard for my caches today.

From here, rather than continue up into the gloom and on towards the summit I followed the edge of the lake around and then headed off west towards the Pony Path along the foot of Cyfrwy. On this fairly indistinct path I met a couple of walkers coming the other way who were a little disorientated so I put them back on track and then headed off towards the Pony Path.

Once on the pony path I headed up again towards a third cache (Kadair Kats) and then further up the path towards a fourth cache (Cadair Kites) which I didn’t manage to find.

The weather was still pretty bad so I turned back and headed back down the Pony Path to the car after a fairly short but nice walk in the hills. I may not have been able to see much and I did get very wet but that is all part of the fun of walking in the hills.