Readers of the blog may be interested to hear that a windfarm is entering the public consultation phase, on the doorstep of Snowdonia on Mynydd Hiraethog. link

While an upland area - reaching over 500m - it isn't protected by National Park or AONB status, meaning if Mid Wales is anything to go by, they'll probably be passed. There's also a sweetener of £150k per year to the local community, obviously the monetary value of wilderness.

What it looks sans turbines....

Consider that, other than Eryri / Snowdonia, Beacons and the Clwydians, the upland areas in Wales have no protection. Are we to start seeing Pumlumon and Y Berwyn dug up in the near future?

The Blog software will be updated in the new year, but previous experience with updating has meant the blog being put utterly out of action.

So if the blog aint here - then the upgrade didn't go well but will be restored from server backups as soon as possible. As the hosting company needs to do this, I'm waiting until after the holiday period to press self destruct.

On the other hand, if I'm bored in the next few days then I'll probably give it a go anyway!

Link: http://blog.cheaptents.com/rspb-bird-of-prey-interview/

The RSPB is currently running a campaign to protect birds of prey by creating more awareness and hopefully more respect for these creatures. CheapTents.com have interviewed John Loder, an RSPB Campaign Talks Officer to tell them all about the campaign and how we walkers, campers and climbers can get involved and do our bit to help preserve a better future for these magnificent birds.

This peregrine falcon was trapped in the Midlands, tragically the RSPB got to this bird to late, the distress and pain on it's face is obvious and it had to be euthanised. This is one of the reasons for this campaign. By D Bromley, courtesy of rspbimages.com

According to this link, the Ordnance Survey appear to have finally seen reason and are opening up their mapping on-line from next year onwards.

Walk Eryri will hope to make full use of this, but remain a strong supporter of the principle of copyright free mapping as created on Open Street Map as they can be placed in downloadable route cards and used as seen fit. We're still hoping that this is what it appears to be.

Who'd think it... Walk Eryri becoming Run Eryri.

Well, not quite, but I've certainly come to the conclusion that walking twice a week in the summer wasn't enough to build my fitness. So I decided to take up running to plug the gap, which should explain the relative quiet that fell across the site in the last few months. I had intended to do the OMM this year as it was meant to be local, but it fell through and this was fortunate as the Lakes are quicker to travel to than Builth from this direction.

Went for a bimble over Moel Eilio and Yr Wyddfa yesterday and there's no doubt that doing 16km runs on the flat helps when walking long distances over the hills. It's also opening up the range of walks I can do after work, as I can cover much more distance in the maximum 4 or 5 hours than before. The two activities are certainly complimentary - the more running I do then the more i get out of my walks. Win-win! I'll see in a few weekends whether it has done anything for my stamina as i do a 60km bimle over a weekend.

Castell Dolwyddelan

The next step will be a spot of trail running and fastpacking (backpacking by running some of it, or walking really quickly) next spring and I fancy a stab at the Saunders Lakeland Mountain Marathon.