As boulderers we regularly encounter mystery in the natural world; Big G is even more finely tuned to these sorts of phenomena. He can literally smell a mystery from a mile away, such is his detective instinct. Don’t ever try to tell him a lie, because he will instantly know, although he may not choose to reveal his knowledge of your deceit at that precise moment. But be sure, he will know, oh yes he will!

Dear NWB readers,
There can be no doubt; this thing is from another galaxy; a thing from beyond the regular ‘beyond’; an inter-galactic fragment from some superior entity constructed of perfect material, burst from the burning tail of a passing comet (before they went bust), too cool to burn up on its passage through the Earth’s atmosphere as it made its final frantic spinning descent to the wooded outskirts of Penrhyndeudraeth. (Mind you, it may have just flaked off the surrounding bed-rock)

Being alien in nature it has shown scant care for the conventions of erosion, presenting little in the way of features save for a sloping top. And this top shall be someone’s finest hour.
From an obvious starting slab the top of the great shard shall be traversed rightwards to an aching mantel at its right extremity. The rock need offer nothing more.
When that top-out comes...the birds shall be silenced, eclipses will occur, the surrounding flora shall mutate.

Access is by an unlikely drive through narrow roads to the north of the village leading to a small brambly copse. A public path leads to the east end of a small ridge Clogwyn Pwisiog starting from its north side (GR 603394) with a picnic-view-spot and ‘rock cannon’ (holes bored into the rock). From here the ridge leads west through the briars to our obscure object of desire.



You must make friends of nonsense - otherwise it shall become an enemy to be feared.

Love, Big G



Further reading:

Rock Cannons
These curious 19th century groupings of hand-drilled boreholes in bedrock were supposedly used to generate sequences of small ‘black-powder’ explosions creating a fixed tune; the note dictating the depth of each. Surely the earliest form of ‘rock music’
They may also have been used as a type of mild land-mine to harass picnickers or wildlife.
Being great in number and often quite deep they indicate the possibility that some people in the Eighteen Hundreds had hitherto unsuspected quantities of free time, which could perhaps have been more usefully devoted to...bouldering.

Relevant links: