Great Orme

Walk Details:
Date: 22/04/2006
Total ascent: 45m/ 148ft
Total distance walked: 1.43 miles
Walk difficulty: 0.5/10
Enjoyment rating: 3.5/10
Best bits: Our first marilyn pub, views of Snowdonia
Worst bits: Ghastly beer from pub, fire alarm going off, ugly summit building
Walkers: Anth, Jim
Car Parking: There’s a car park next to the summit. If that’s full, there are car parks all around the base… or you could try the tram. Or the cable car. This one ain’t exactly inaccessible…!

Top details:
Name: Great Orme
Marilyn number: 30 of 1553
Grid reference: SH 76754 83337
Height above sea level: 207m/ 679ft
How nice was the top? 3/10
Views: 6.5/10
Description/Notes: The highest point of the Great Orme is marked by a trig point.

The Walk:

Normally we do make an effort to walk up to tops (apart from parking at the very worst kind of urban County Top), especially when a decent marilyn is in the offing. We would have done the same today; after all, there are plenty of car parks around the base of the Great Orme. However, we had arranged to meet Jus & Cat here. Given what we’d seen previously of their navigational prowess we decided that the only way we had any chance of meeting them here was to park at the most obvious location: the summit car park. This did feel rather (ok, a lot!) like cheating, but given the range of options available to reach the summit we wondered if anyone actually walked up. As well as the summit car park there was a tram and a cable car – although the cable car wasn’t open.

We reached the summit via a long, steep twisting road (the entrance to it is quite hard to spot – follow the signs for the copper mines from the centre of Llandudno). A quick call established that Cat & Jus had only just reached Chester, having got stuck in a traffic jam of Chelsea fans (probably paid for out of the Abramovich coffers). We briefly debated quickly bagging the Great Orme & then moving on to the next marilyn & telling them to catch up with us, but decided that would be a bit cruel. Instead we wound down for a leisurely stop on this summit.

We ate our lunch on the western side of the car park with a grand – if hazy – view across the sea towards the mountains of northern Snowdonia. It was a good prelude for tomorrow, when we would be tackling the mighty Carneddau range. It would certainly be a change from Great Orme, where we sat with the summit pub and gift shop behind us, and the rattling of the tram and screams from the playground. It made us feel like we weren’t proper hillbaggers. However, in the weak sunshine we did feel pretty chilled out!

Our appetites satiated, we got up for a wander. A low escarpment in front of a small depression, just to the south of where we’d eaten lunch was, we assumed, evidence of past quarrying. Turning towards the summit itself was a shock – the “summit complex” of pub, restaurant and gift shop was what Prince Charles would undoubtedly term a “monstrous carbuncle” – an ugly white Victorian job, clearly built with the aim of dominating and subduing the landscape rather than working in harmony with it.

We circled around to the east of the building, spotting what appeared to be a free car park below us next to a cemetery, which would probably make an ideal place to park for a swift ascent of the hill. We however continued our brief circumnavigation of the summit complex, finding the trig point on a low rocky knoll immediately south of the complex. The views were good and it felt nice and light and airy – until one looked in the direction of the summit complex which was even uglier from the back.

Unfortunately Justin and Cat were still some way away so for something to do we bought a drink in the Randolph Turpins, the summit pub which, for no adequately explained reason, had a boxing theme. Whilst it’s cool having a pub on a summit, this one was dark and ugly inside and showing large screen football, so we took our pints out to the patio only to discover that we’d been served some of the nastiest Tetley’s bitter in Britain (and let’s face it, it’s not the nicest beer to start off with!). Our contemplation of this foul beverage was further disturbed by an alarm going off for ten minutes in the nearby ice cream kiosk.

Eventually Justin & Cat did turn up, after several phonecalls to navigate them through Llandudno. After their tardy arrival Jim & I were in no mood to allow them a beer. We allowed them a brief pause to eat sandwiches whilst Jim and I wandered a little way northwards to look at the view in that direction (lots of sea). We were surprised to find that in our vague meanderings around the summit we’d clocked up over a mile. However, it wasn’t long before we returned Jim was impatiently revving his car behind Justin’s to encourage them onwards to Holyhead Mountain.

The name “Great Orme” may derive from the Norse word for worm or sea serpent. It was in a way appropriate, for this beautiful headland had been devoured by the serpent of commercialisation.