Britain’s 40 Finest Mountains

The Spring 2018 issue of The Great Outdoors magazine, as part of its “40^th Birthday Collectors Edition”, included a supplement called Britain’s 40 Finest Mountains.

In the introduction to the list it is said that “Of course, any such list is highly subjective…” but it would be hard to argue against many, or perhaps even any, of the mountains that are included.  Although there are a few that I haven’t yet climbed – all of those are in Scotland – their reputations alone make me think that the list has been chosen on merit and I haven’t spotted any obvious exclusions.  Having said that, only Scafell Pike of the National Three Peaks does not appear but its neighbour Sca Fell does!

Some years ago TRAIL magazine published a list of “the 100 finest UK mountains” which I always felt contained some entries that were chosen based as much on their geography as on their mountain characteristics.  The TGO 40 doesn’t appear to suffer from that bias and I feel that it is a purer list, albeit quite a bit smaller.

Of the TGO 40 list, 37 of the mountains are also on the TRAIL 100 list.  The three that aren’t are Ben Loyal, Braeriach and Creag Meagaidh.

Of course, I now have to amalgamate the TGO 40 into my own combination of hill lists, but I only have to add two of the mountains as Braeriach is already on my list as a Scottish 4000 foot summit.

East of Blaenau

Starting from a near empty car park in Blaneau Ffestiniog the road from the back led up to a quarry track, itself leading through cement pools made up of slate dust on a footpath marked by yellow-topped poles through the abundant rhododendrons before coming to a halt at a ruined winding house.

Moelwyn Mawr over the quarry

From here, open moorland beckoned with a sharp turn left the start of the ascent of a snow-dusted Moel Penamnen over the Moel Bowydd plateau.

Moel Penamnen

I took the obvious weakness up the south face which could, only with some imagination, be called a gully.  The small snow patches were hard to avoid and by stepping on them the snow compacted to ice rendering the tread on my boots quickly useless and causing a few slips.

Tryfan from the ascent of Moel Penamnen

Once on the summit ridge a short walk over the minor top resulted in some impressive views from the grassy summit.

Manod Mawr from Moel Penamnen

Allt-fawr, Moel Druman, Moel Hebog and Ysgafell Wen

From the summit a broad ridge led to Foel-fras, along which I kept Manod Mawr North Top in view, noting its snow cover and what looked like a steep slope to ascend.  A descent to the treeline and then to the fence over boggy ground led to a morass.  I tried to keep to the fenceline in the forlorn hope of keeping my feet dry but admitted defeat and took aim for a ruined building at the edge of Cwt-y-bugail quarry to escape the infinite bog.  It turned out to be a good lunch spot!

From here I saw a walker on Foel-fras following my track but they disappeared and I didn’t see them again.  The only other people I saw during the day was a group of four and then a couple were seen walking towards the quarry, probably from Penmachno.  East of Blaenau is definitely a place to escape the crowds!

Heading to Manod Mawr some care was needed over the loosely stacked slate rubble to reach a stile at the track before following the fence up an easy slope, complete with footsteps of previous walkers.  Unusual cubed piles of stones, topped by a single plinth stone, marked the way.  At the north top of Manod Mawr a large cairn on an attractive natural pavement marked the summit with the extent of the Graig-ddu quarry hidden by the flat top.  Time taken here to linger and enjoy the expansive view is well spent.

Manod Mawr North Top summit cairn

Tryfan, Moel Penamnen and Moel Siabod from the north top

I walked to the quarry edge with a sheer drop straight ahead and no obvious way off to the west, so I turned left and followed the edge to a disused track which led to the main quarry road.  Just before the road started to descend into the main chasm, I struck off towards Manod Mawr.

Locating the subsidiary top, even in excellent visibility, was challenging and I chose a small prominence to mark it, although it could have been any of two or three others.  When Moss compiled his list, I suspect that there was a single 2000-foot contour ring (or spot height) to mark the point, now long lost to metric mapping.

An easy walk led to Manod Mawr’s highpoint, with uninterrupted 360-degree views, from Moelwyn Mawr to Snowdon to Tryfan to the Carneddau to Siabod to the Arenigs and distant summits east and south.

The Arenigs from Manod Mawr summit

Manod Mawr North Top from Manod Mawr

The descent of the north-west spur led to a disused incline, the start of some welcome easier walking back to the car park following the sometimes challenging ground experienced on the day’s higher ground.

The way down