Anglesey Unitary Authority

Walk Details:
Date: 22/04/2006
Total ascent: 332m/ 1,089ft
Total distance walked: 2.95 miles
Walk difficulty: 5/10
Enjoyment rating: 7.5/10
Best bits: Astonishing blasted rocky landscape, “fell running” style descent
Worst bits: Views obscured by low cloud
Walkers: Anth, Jim, Jus, Cat
Car Parking: We parked at the public car park at SH 227 833

Top details:
Name: Holyhead Mountain
County top number: 119 of 205
Marilyn number: 31 of 1553
Grid reference: SH 21860 82944
Height above sea level: 220m/ 722ft
How nice was the top? 7/10
Views: ?/10
Description/Notes: The highest point of Holyhead Mountain is marked by a trig point. It’s the highest point of Anglesey unitary authority and a marilyn to boot.

The Walk:

It had felt like a long drive to get here from our last top (the Great Orme), but at least the scenery across Anglesey was nice. Strangely the highest point of Anglesey unitary authority is not on Anglesey itself, but on the island of Holyhead. We’d been looking forward to this one all day – not only was it our first island top, but it was our first hill with the moniker “Mountain”. The OS map showed a mass of contours and rocks – it looked like this hill would be more impressive than its height of 220 metres would suggest.

A long road full of speed bumps led out to a car park at the base of the mountain. Justin and Cat arrived some time after Jim and I having taken the wrong turn once (we amusingly stopped on a road just above him and beeped the horn until he looked up) and grounded Justin’s MG on every one of the dozens of speed ramps leading up to it. The car park was rather interesting in itself, being built around the remains of a huge chimney and a couple of factories, some long forgotten industrial site now slowly being reclaimed by nature. There’s also toilets, a tourist info booth and a café.

A direct ascent of The Mountain (as it’s known locally) was impossible for us from here – the car park backs onto steep cliffs. Instead we headed north-east out of the car park, meeting on the way a couple of climbers returning from their endeavours laden with ropes and karabiniers. Combined with the cliffs this gave a slightly scary edge to proceedings!

The path we were on curved round between ponds and wooden exercise equipment before annoyingly returning to a different part of the car park. We tried again, setting off this time on the coast path to make our way up around the edge of the cliffs. This time it worked, and we soon started a moderate ascent on a rough stony track. We soon emerged into an alien world; a feral, rock-strewn hillside with occasional seams of burnt heather and rocky outcrops. The brutish landscape contrasted jarringly with the calm blue sea, now a long way down. As if to emphasize the contrast a white sails glided serenely past below.

We followed the coast path for some distance, gradually encircling the “mountain” until we reached a left turning where we could finally turn towards the summit. This path was more rocky and winding than the first, and initially led us up to a minor sub-top. Here we realised that the calm appearance of the sea was a lie, for the wind was howling across Holyhead today. The sub-top had a ruined building on its summit, and we were able to gain some respite behind its walls. Looking onwards we saw Holyhead Mountain itself sloping upwards into what could have been a smooth cone had the top not been obscured by swirling cloud.

At the col between the two peaks the path turned right to take a more gentle approach to the “mountain” top. A smaller path headed straight up the hillside, and it was this one that Jim and I took, galloping well ahead of Jus & Cat. It turned out to have a hint of scrambliness about it, a most pleasant surprise. We wound our way steeply up between rocks, occasionally using our hands to steady ourselves. Cresting the first set of rocks, a small barren stony plateau presented itself. We rested in the shelter of the next clump of rocks and waited for Justin and Cat to catch up.

The four of us made the final push for the summit together, up between another clump of rocks to find ourselves on an equally rocky top. Whilst it was flat, it was small enough to still feel like you were on a summit, and was nicely furnished with a trig point and a series of small walls. The Welsh name for Holyhead Mountain is Mynydd Twr (Tower Mountain), because there was once a Roman look-out point here. We wondered if the low walls were the remains of the tower, but they somehow didn’t seem old enough.

I’d love to say there were magnificent views, but we were now well within the cloud level and could see very little. The wind was, as Jim would say, “blowing a hoolie” with big chunks of cloud howling past us like damp cotton wool. Despite this, Jim wanted to ascend the trig, and with some alarming wobbles and Jus & Cat holding on to him he eventually managed it. Apparently the view was no better from two metres higher!

It wasn’t long before we wanted to get out of the wind, and started to descend off of the far side of the hill. Jim and I started a fell-running style descent for the third time today; it quickly descended into a semi-race. It was certainly a little on the dangerous side but great fun nevertheless! When we reached the bottom of the main descent we looked back and couldn’t see Jus or Cat anywhere. They eventually caught up with us a good ten minutes later and proclaimed that both Jim and I were “total nutters”!

We turned sharp left onto a lower level path which would take us around the base of the summit cone and eventually back to the car park. The landscape changed dramatically. Gone was the bare rock, scree and blasted heath; here in the lee of the mountain agriculture was possible. On our left were many miniscule, barren fields enclosed by crumbling dry stone walls; similar to the pictures of Inisheer that are shown at the start of Father Ted. Some of these stone walls had astonishingly intricate and regular patterns of lichen on them, looking strangely like a map of the American states. To our right were a group of horses in an exceptionally verdant field that stood out brightly against its unimproved compatriots. For these horses the grass was certainly not greener on the other side!

This pleasant path eventually bought us out into the houses of a hamlet called – such imagination – Mountain. We had some difficulty finding the path onwards here – a householder appeared to have parked his vehicles deliberately in such a way as to make finding (or getting onto) the onwards paths very difficult. It was Cat who eventually discovered a way through, and soon after we were descending a long flight of steps back to the car park.

It had been an excellent walk – all four of us had thoroughly enjoyed it, despite the limited visibility. Despite it’s modest stature, we decided that Holyhead Mountain more than deserves the title “Mountain” – frankly it was a far better hill than many we’ve done of much greater height. It once again demonstrated why relative height (ie the marilyns) provides a far better indication of how good a hill will be than absolute height (ie almost all other hill lists).

We had been going to do a further marilyn today (Mynydd Bodafon on Anglesey itself), but Jim and I wanted to make sure we’d get to the youth hostel in time for dinner. We therefore parted company with Jus & Cat (who were staying at a hotel elsewhere in Snowdonia, and headed for Llanberis stopping only briefly for petrol and photos in the unattractive yet famous village of Llanfairpwllgwynohmygoshwhatalongnamegogogoch on the way.