There will be many versions of that weekend's events, but only one truth. Those who were there are all sworn to secrecy. So here's the public version of events
Gav, Karl and myself met up in Pontywyd on Friday night. The A44 was a nightmare. I had a lorry jackknife in front of me and go off into a ditch. I tried to pull him out. Nah. Eventually, we found what the major hold up was. Two council gritting lorries clearly spinning out their overtime before Christmas. Doing not a damn thing except blocking the A44 in both directions and thinking it was funny. We three set off into the trees to find somewhere. We found lots of places that weren't on the map and couldn't find places that were. Eventually we got to the most perfect campsite imaginable in a glade.
After a Gin and Tonic, nibbles, poppadoms, curry, rice and full on BBQ, we had coffee, biscuits and a bottle of very fine Irish whiskey. At this point some other bloke turned up in a 100. Clearly lost we befriended him (a bit) and let him stay for a while. Clearly either foreign (Dutch we guessed) or just escaped from somewhere, it was apparent that he wasn't going to go away. And as he had some old biscuits with him, we let him park quite near to us. Being foreign, he was difficult to understand but we think he was called Warren?
It continued to snow.
So, Mr Gav decided that instead of fly-tipping all of the rubbish that he'd brought with him, we set fire to it instead. Luckily Ray Mears was on hand with his trusty axe to get a proper fire going.
Here are some people enjoying the fire. One looks a little grumpy. This was due to his Mummy calling him every 5 mins to tell him to wear a hat.
Cracking night's sleep. Despite everyone else's concerns, we had a fantastic night. The new guy was a bit cold, but this turned out to be because he was a Southerner and not at all foreign, as we first feared. NATO sleeping bag comes highly recommended.
And that, as far as group two is concerned, was largely that. We didn't wake up until 08.00 hrs, had a full on brekkie, got to the RV (late), split into two groups and headed off.
Good looking truck that one.
We went up the long incline shown previously and Reinhard leading the group got caught on a right hander at the top. There was some considerable trouser soiling and shouts of 'It's sliding, I can't stop' as we all backed up to give everyone room. The problem largely seemed to be that each vehicle passing, compressed the snow more and more until is was hard and smooth. We put some snow mats under Reinhard's back wheels and that gave him good grip. He shot off up the track when suddenly their was a loud 'pop' and grease spattered in the snow. After an hour's recovery it was clear that something in the CV dept had gone. We don't know what yet. It might have popped out or snapped. So for Reinhard it was a big yellow truck and a B&B for the night. We then spent almost the entire rest of the day making tea, TWOC ing Jonnie's 80 and talking to idiots in..... yes, Landrover products.
The remainder of us then set off, capably led by some Scally from up Noorth. Great lane. I had a wobble, bringing up the rear when a front wheel went off the track over the edge. Any movement at all was the wrong direction. It was like the bus at the end of the Italian Job. I was bricking it frankly. Dave and Karl reversed up and after a series of heart-stopping tugs we got my 80 back on the road. This is why you should NOT go out on your own.
Lovely setting. Great crew. Not much laning, or none for some people, but I'd do it again for the camping.
All ended well with the hat saga anyway. His Nan rang in the end and said that she'd hold her breath until he put it on. So he did.
And that was our day in Wales.
Chris
Managed some off-roading too 
but when we did, it was purfek 
