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Photos: Big G


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This month Big G takes us up above Capel Curig to the Rattle-stone Rock of lower Crimpiau, a little visited place where you will find gas pockets galore and perhaps a little peace of mind.

”Sir,
tis May and the curtain lifts at five with a chorus of birds... and dreams.
The sun cuts through the grey misty crap, illuminating roving dollops of green hillside as the new shoots come.
The blackthorn blossoms are done; now the hawthorns are as fallen puffs of cloud, each with its own orchestra of bugs.
A sparse blanket of bluebells stoops in perfect modesty.
The bracken is rising in phallic fronds, soon to engulf and disorientate the short, and to hide those boulders of marginal size. Sit-down starts will disappear into a sweaty jungle. And on still evenings the winged plague of the midge shall descend; extending their lives by stealing ours.

With this in mind, go you, with a few merry buds, and follow the sly cuckoo, up through the trees and away to the high places above Capel Curig, into the hinterland ‘over the back’ towards Crimpiau (Welsh for ‘place of the small edges’)

Trot through the absorbing bogs as cotton grasses bow at your passing like polite blond elfs. At gr 751 588 in a position that lords over the great sprawl-scape of Nant y Geuallt the Rattle Stone feature will be found above Clogwyn Cigfran.
It has a fine aspect and manageable landings.
This is the home of the gas pocket. A myriad queer letter-boxes perforate the outcrops here, each with an elfin something in its form, not least the Rattle-stone; a unique rock-within-rock. Here indeed, is rock ridged with magic. A place to recline upon your mats a while, below the enormous sky.
And to listen as the cuckoo calls.
The curtain falls at ten.

Pull with everything you’ve got.

Love, Big G”

Relevant links:
      Clogwyn Cigfran news item