A New Adventure: Tackling the Welsh Nuttalls
Having recently completed a circumnavigation of Wales on foot I decided I needed a new project to have on the back-burner. When I first set out on my journey to conquer the Wales Coast Path, I was fit, relatively young, and had the luxury of dedicating a day each week to it. But as life would have it, this grand plan didn’t quite unfold as I had envisioned. Over the years, my once-regular outings became a sporadic pursuit, dictated by a mix of factors—time, fitness, transportation, and the ever-present need to avoid injury. And, of course, a couple of minor setbacks like a global pandemic and a major heart attack didn’t exactly help speed things along. Looking back, I think it’s fair to say I’m forgiven for taking my time.
In some ways, though, the lack of a strict timeline turned out to be a blessing. It allowed me to savour each section of the coast path as I completed it, without the pressure of a deadline. So when it came time to choose my next adventure, I knew I needed something that offered a similar blend of flexibility, challenge, and discovery.
I wanted a project with enough stages to keep me occupied for a while—something I could pick up whenever my schedule allowed, but that wouldn’t demand my constant attention. It had to be fun, a bit challenging, and it needed to take me to places I hadn’t explored before. Naturally, it also had to be in Wales, so I could easily head out for a day trip whenever the mood struck. And lastly, it needed a clear end goal—a summit to reach, so to speak.
After a little bit of thought I decided that summiting all of the ‘mountains’ of Wales would be a good option. But what exactly does that mean?
The Nuttalls: A New Challenge
I did some research and learned that the Welsh 3000s—peaks over 3,000 feet—are already familiar territory for me. There are 15 of them, and I’ve already climbed them all. Most of them are logged on SummitBag by GPS, except for Crib Goch and Crib y Ddysgl, which I tackled many years ago before GPS was a thing. While it would be fun to bag them again for the digital record, a single day out just didn’t feel like enough of a challenge for my next project.
Enter the Nuttalls—a list of peaks in England and Wales over 2,000 feet, as defined by John and Anne Nuttall in their book The Mountains of England and Wales. There are 189 Welsh Nuttalls, now, that’s a project! Climbing all of them would not only take time and effort, but it would also mean I could eventually say I’ve summited every mountain in Wales. With a clear end goal in sight and the flexibility to pursue it at my own pace, I knew I’d found my next little adventure.
Just for the record, the general requirement to be called a mountain in the British Isles is a summit with a height of 2,000 feet (609.6m) or more. Nuttalls are further defined by also having to have a prominence of 15 metres (c. 50 feet) or more. All 189 in Wales are doable and the mountains will be there whenever I have the time and inclination to get to them.
My List of Nuttalls
A quick glance at SummitBag showed that I’d already ticked off a fair number of the Welsh Nuttalls—63 out of 189, one third of them to be exact. Not a bad start, but still plenty to go! So, with a free day on Monday and with Morgan eager to join me, we set off to bag the summit of Cyfrwy on Cadair Idris.
Starting the Journey: Bagging Cyfrwy
Cyfrwy was actually one of the summits that I have been to before but not with a GPS device. I could therefore claim to have already bagged it but thought it would be good to tick it off digitally as well. I’d actually been to it a number of times, both as a walk on Cadair Idris and more notably when scaling the proper climbing route of Cyfrwy Arete.
Today it would be ‘just a walk’ and as Morgan was coming with me it made sense to visit a few other peaks so that he too could tick off some Nuttalls.
Cadair Idris Round Trip
Our day began with a mild, grey sky and a stiff breeze as we parked at the top of the Tal y Llyn Pass. The 2-mile descent to the car park at the bottom of the Minffordd Path was quick, and soon we were shedding our jackets and joining the throngs of other hikers heading up to Llyn Cau. Being a bank holiday, the trail was busy, but we pushed on, overtaking others until the crowds thinned out near the lake. By then, we were both hot and sweaty, but a brief stop at the lake gave us a chance to cool down before tackling the next steep climb.
Our first summit of the day was Craig Lwyd at 690 meters. Despite its height, it’s not classified as a Nuttall due to its lack of prominence (9 m). We didn’t linger long and continued on to Craig Cwm Amarch (792 m), which, with a prominence of 79 meters, officially counted as our first Nuttall of the day. After a brief pause, we descended into the saddle between here and Penygadair, the highest point on Cadair Idris.
Off to Cyfrwy
Instead of heading straight to the top, we veered off to the left and found a sheltered spot below some pillow lavas for lunch. I took the opportunity to give Morgan his second geology lesson of the day—because what’s a mountain hike without a bit of geology? I’d already pointed out the features of the roche moutonnée by Llyn Cau, now it was pillow lavas!
We even got the stove out and brewed a hot drink to warm up, as the chill had set in and the peaks were still cloaked in cloud.
After lunch, we made our way across the rocky plateau to the summit of Cyfrwy, standing at 811 meters. This was our main target for the day, as it was one of the Nuttalls I hadn’t yet logged with GPS.
To the Top and Beyond
From Cyfrwy, we backtracked slightly, joined the Pony Path, and made the short ascent to Penygadair, the 893-meter summit of Cadair Idris and our third Nuttall of the day. A quick touch of the trig point, a peek inside the shelter, and we were off again, crossing the ridge to Mynydd Moel, which at 863 meters became Nuttall number four.
With most of the crowds heading back to the Minffordd Car Park, we found ourselves with the mountain almost to ourselves as we started our descent. We ticked off another summit at Mynydd Gwerngraig (686 m ), though with a prominence of only 9 metres it didn’t qualify as a Nuttall.
The final challenge of the day was a short detour to the summit of Gau Graig, which, despite being slightly lower at 684 meters, has enough prominence to qualify as our fifth Nuttall of the day. From there, we took a steep, rocky descent down to the next boggy ridge and followed the track back to the car.
A Good Day Out
In total it had been a 9.93 mile walk with 3,691 feet (1125 m) of climbing. We had bagged 7 summits, 5 of them Nuttalls. They were all new summits for Morgan. I’d been to them all before but did add a new one to my digitial GPS register.
A good day out, but by the end of it my Achilles was killing me – that’s the last time I wear those Altra Lone Peak shoes as each time I do I end up with an Achilles injury, so they are going to a charity shop and I shall have to do some shoe shopping- again!
Which Nuttalls will be next on my list? I’ve made a full list of my progress here: Welsh Nuttals List
2 Responses
Leave a Reply
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Nice to have Morgan along for company
No photo of you ?
PS sounds a good adventure as you said can be done as and when x