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Day 25
The next day I had a very gentle day, a rest day, although some people might not consider a ten mile walk over three two-thousand foot mountains to be a rest day. Nearly all my gear was left under the bed in the hostel and the light pack put me in relaxed mood immediately. I strolled along the main road, fortunately with a pavement, to Blaenau Ffestiniog where I bought the last map, 115, another film and replenishments for my coffee supplies. I went into a little cafe where everybody was speaking Welsh and enjoyed a leisurely coffee with a slice of cake. The sun was shining, doing its best to make this dismal place look attractive, but it could not disguise the desolate feel of this grey town surrounded by piles of slate and decaying quarries where every third house seemed to be for sale.
I climbed slowly out of town through one of the abandoned quarries. Rusting trucks stood on rusting rails and at the top of a slaty incline rusting wire was wound round the rotting wooden drum of an old winding house. Nobody it seems is interested in preserving this piece of industrial history. Some of the quarries have been preserved of course, restored and turned into successful tourist attractions. While the rails rust and the buildings collapse it seems unlikely that all trace of the human desecration of this hillside will ever disappear. The piles of slate are now a permanent feature of the landscape and there is little sign of plant life getting a roothold amongst them. Only where the slate has been laid into levels and inclines is vegetation appearing in the cracks. The way out onto the hill was obvious, the only grassy line, a narrow green passage through the perilously perched piles of grey slabs.
Above the slate a boggy plateau was crossed to the steeper grass which swept up to the summit of Moel Penamnen. Snowdon could just be seen, a faint grey silhouette through the heat haze. By the time I had finished a leisurely lunch it had faded away altogether. The gentlest of breezes, caressing my bare arms, added to my sense of well being and relaxation on this almost overpoweringly hot day.
Manod Mawr North Top approached over the bog from the north looks a very ordinary rounded sort of hill but the south side is just an enormous quarry. The book told me to keep well to the east to avoid the workings but they have now spread right across the col and far down the eastern side and they are certainly neither disused nor abandoned. Dumper trucks were moving up and down the bulldozed tracks and a red notice, which I expected to tell me to keep out, simply told me to beware of them, which I took as a sign that they expected walkers to come through, unpleasant though it was. I wondered whether this hill might one day disappear from the list of two-thousanders as it is progressively quarried away. There is no such threat at the moment to its parent summit, Manod Mawr, which was a very easy stroll on grass once the hazardous col had been left behind. A rough descent followed to Llyn y Manod but it was soon back to the gentle ambling, now through fields, which had made this such a restful and refreshing day.
Ffestiniog youth hostel is a magnificently situated mansion which used to belong to a rich quarry owner. The view from the dining room window is breathtakingly beautiful looking across the Vale of Ffestiniog to the Moelwyns. Tonight the sun sank behind the bold outline of these hills as the heat haze dispersed in the cool evening air. At breakfast, lit by the rising sun, they glowed faintly through the early morning mist which gave promise of another beautiful day. What a pity the YHA is trying to sell this hostel.
I had been rethinking my original plan as I was anxious to avoid carrying my heavy pack over the knife edge of Crib Goch. I had really enjoyed the easy day on the Manods without the pack and I thought that if I could now spend two nights at Bryn Gwynant hostel I could do the Snowdon Horseshoe from there. This idea was thwarted however because when I rang the hostel they had no beds for either Saturday or Sunday night. It was the May Day bank holiday weekend. I felt very annoyed and frustrated by this unexpected hitch in my plans but as things turned out it was a bit of good luck.
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