The hills behind Blaenau Ffestiniog are spectacular and are steeped in the history of the old slate quarries which provided industry for the town of Blaenau and the surrounding area. This geocache is called MaesGarnedd which is the Welsh for Area of Ruins or Field of Cairns (both seem appropriate on this beautiful hillside)
If you leave from the parking area, you go through a metal gate following the edge of the wooded area before turning left alongside the stream steeply uphill. At the top of the steep section you follow the path through the blueberry bushes as it swings left to a set of slate steps and an incline once used to get the slate from the quarries to the town. From the ruins at the top of the incline it is a short flat walk past a number of old ruined quarry buildings to the geocache site - the geocache is in the ruins of an old quarry cottage. From here you have a spectacular view to the Moelwyn Mountains, to the Lynn Penisula, to the Rhinog Mountains behind Trawsfyndd and to the sea at Porthmadog. You get a real sense of the quarrying history of the area from this geocache high above Blaenau Ffestiniog and an idea about the life of the 5000 quarry workers who worked slate in the area.
The old cottage where the geocache is placed is near the entrance to an adit. According to the old Lechwydd quarry manager the hills are covered with old adits. Some have been closed off for safety reasons but many are still open. They should not be entered without knowledge of what to expect and a bright torch. For example the adit next to this ruin is a minimum of 200m long and probably much longer, pitch dark, wet in places and in the main chamber there is evidence of an old railway track heading down to a lower chamber which is under water - never walk in water in any of the adits on the hillside of which there are many as the water could conceal an entrance to a lower chamber.