Dave, G0AOD sent me a mail said he was going to do Cadair Idris and as its on my list of not done summits I was happy to catch a lift.

Trusting Tom Tom we headed off to west Wales only to find Tom Tom had decided to have a bad GPS day. After a quick fix by entering Lat/Long we are directed to the car park at SH697152, but at £4 for the day we decided that a single parking spot just after Pony Lane was a far better option.

The weather was okay, a few spots of rain but nothing to worry about, we climbed via the pony path for a short while and then turned off at SH691135 to head along the edge looking down to Llyn Y Gadar Lake .

Its quite a nice walk, a few rocky bits but not a scramble in any way, the path is very easy to follow and your unlikely to get lost. It has been well maintained in places. We were not given much views on the way up due to low cloud, but the ones we did get look stunning.

We arrived at the Trip point, and by this time the rain had set in, so we made straight for the summit shelter and what a shelter. This tin roof large stone shelter is very well maintained and very clean inside but it was very damp due to the weather.



However it could not have been more welcoming, Dave set up the HF antenna and I opted to use the 3 ele beam but only use it as a dipole to save going outside to point it in each direction, we slipped the coax though a small gap and set up in our new shack. All we needed was a real fireplace.


Dave on HF


Steve on 2m SSB

No being in any hurry because of the ran we made a good few contacts on HF and 2m SSB, easily making contact with Don, G0RQL in Devon on the side of the dipole. The entire time we could hear the rain falling on the tin roof, such a wonderful sound. We had the shelter all to ourselves for the time we were there.

The trip down gave us a few more views than the trip up, one quick view of the clouds below us.





We met one of the Snowdonia Rangers, lovely chap who we had a chat with for a while and it turned out he comes up quite a bit to clean and maintain the shelter, we said how well it is looked after and how much we appreciated it on such a day. He said that its hard work, for example, if you ever visit, take a look at the largest roof bean and ask yourself how it got there. Then picture two people dragging it up the mountain, that’s how, sometimes they do get material lifted by helicopter but no often. Some of the sleepers we carried!

Overall a great 8 mile walk and thanks to the chasers that worked us.