As the year comes to a close we find Big G, a touch mournful at the passing of his favourite season, but still dishing out shiny gems for the dolerite connoisseur:

“Dear NWB.com readers, December, and all is lost.
Of course, every now and then this feature has to introduce something of unquestionable quality to save its own quality...er...coming into question.
And so to ‘Secteur Dustbin’ (gr525 451) in the very particular Cwm Pennant; a place burdened with spirit-riddled silence, where queer shadows creep from the corners of fields, as rook flocks fan the weirdness through tunnels of tree branches; overhanging the road as skeletal limbs. Quarries moulder. Save for the odd far-distant ghost-driven tractor, nothing much moves in the cwm. So much beauty - but somewhere around the next corner - one senses...The Beast.

At the valleys most captivating point, a Pont Gyfyng crosses the moss-cobbled Afon Dwyfor, and then comes a tight bend where people have, for generations, avoided the overt challenge of the dust bin outcrops. This way awesome rock lies.
From the bridge a thwack through brambles will reveal slabs of the ‘brown stuff’ to die for (careful overuse of mats recommended). And high above the bend (accessed from above) the main features; dominated by a huge detached flake, and behind it; a crevasse of interest (the interior becoming more amenable with a hefty collection of mats.) To the right there is an interesting mantleshelf feature with a just-sufficient landing positioned above a humungous and unthinkable drop onto the bins below.
Above all this, set in a stupendous position; more fine blocklets and a couple of delicate slabs in the lower grades.

You must make friends of the brambles.
Otherwise they will become enemies to be feared.

Love, Big G”

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