GLADMAN

Fast fading light............

The landscape below has changed beyond recognition across the course of millennia.... yet the great monument still crowns Y Garn.

Looking from Y Garn across the Nant y Moch reservoir toward Drosgol (left) and Banc Llechwedd-mawr (right), both outlying hills crowned by a pair of large Bronze Age cairns.

Shattered, with a drystone windbreak.... for sheep?.... this nevertheless remains a very substantial summit cairn indeed.

The siren call of Pen Pumlumon-Fawr from across the very substantial footprint of the cairn....

Looking across the cairn’s massive footprint deep into the enigmatic upland Bronze Age landscape of Pumlumon. Cadair Idris crowns the horizon, centre left, with the great Aran Fawddwy visible to the right.

The massive summit cairn of Y Garn........

My rucksack highlights the huge dimensions of this mighty – and it would appear obscure – upland cairn.......

Note the rucksack upon the right-hand part of the cairn: this is very substantial.

Looking toward Y Bala-way. In such quiet landscapes legends were born.... such as Michael Collins, who was interned at nearby Frongoch following the Easter Rising of 1916

Arenig Fawr rises across Llyn Celyn....... the reservoir, created during the 1960s to supply Liverpool, covers the former village of Treweryn. Incidentally, this attractive stretch of water was the inspiration for the excellent Manic Street Preachers’ song ‘Ready for Drowning’ (apparently the late R S Thomas, too, although I happen to think Mr Wire approaches the complex issues of Welsh identity in a far more relevant, thought-provoking manner than a self-contradictory priest).

Towards the mountains of Central Snowdonia from the cairn. Moel Siabod can be seen, centre right skyline......

Arenig Fach, topped by the mighty Carnedd y Bachgen, rises to the west.

Approaching from the approx south-east

Looking across to the excellent Pared y Cefn Hir hillfort, rising above the Llynnau Cregennen

The legendary Cadair Idris (Idris’ Chair) – formed by the triumvirate summit peaks of the mountain – rear overwhelmingly above the Bronze Age cairns upon Carnedd Lwyd. It’s not hard to see how such places become the epicentre of legend. There is a further prehistoric cairn upon Mynydd Moel beyond Cyfrwy. Pen-y-Gadair peeks through cloud top right.

Sunburst...... topographically speaking, it might be suggested that the outcrops supporting the cairns mimic the great, central summits of Cadair Idris beyond.

Very, very windy at the time...

The Arans crown the left-hand skyline, by the way. But that’s another story.

The western, northern cairn.... if that makes sense?

These aren’t the finest upland cairns in Wales – by a long shot – from an archaeological perspective... but one has to concede the positioning – the rocky outcrops of Carnedd Lwyd, upon the eastern shoulder of Tyrrau Mawr – looking towards Cyfrwy and Pen-y-Gadair, is magnificent. Looking from Tyrrau Mawr itself.

The round.... well, ‘roundish’... cairn at SH6145807631 leads the eye toward the enigmatic Craig-yr-Aderyn across Dyffryn Dysynni.

The cairn-that-isn’t-the-ring-cairn at SH6145807631, toward Tywyn.

SH615077 – the centre of the cairn has been hollowed out... as you would expect.... to reveal the possible remnants of a cist. Incidentally, the wondrous Craig-yr-Aderyn can be seen between the 2nd and 3rd fence posts from the right.

SH615077 – again, note that footprint.

SH615077 – very cold, very windy, very hostile. But glorious just the same.

SH615077 – maybe coincidence.... but that did appear to be a kerb stone, foreground.

SH6145807631 – I thought this cairn had one of the finest relatively low-level vistas I’ve seen for a long time, that of the beautiful valley of the Afon Dysynni.

SH612081.... The footprint proving this was indeed once a fine round cairn. It’s still fine, but now somewhat truncated.

SH612081.... looking to the coast.

SH615077 – the underlying footprint is pretty impressive. I took the linear walling to the right to be a later amendment, perhaps domestic?

Highlighting the twin cairns positioning upon the summit ridge...

Sunburst upon Pumlumon... whatever next? Note the significant footprint for what is now such an isolated cairn...

Eastern cairn rises beyond...

Panorama looking approx north-east. Quite a bit going on out there.

Pen Pumlumon-Fawr rises across the valley... as the name suggests, the sentinel peak.

Eastern cairn.... note the very substantial footprint beneath the modern walker’s cairn.

Eastern cairn from the western