Weather Links

MWIS. Weather forecast for mountain regions. Only active Friday to Sunday. Highly Recommended.

Met Office. Now it's improved to a 5 day forecast! Great.

Snowdonia Snowline - States the altitude of lying snow in the Carneddau.

Metcheck weather

Advertise your Snowdonia Business here! Email for info.

Accuweather

Snowdon Weather Station Project. Weather data, but is down at the moment. The Webcams show Elidir Fawr and Moel Eilio.

Snowdon Sherpa Bus Timetables

Welsh Highland Railway.

Travelline Wales.

theTrainline - Timetables and online booking

The Welsh 3000s - website just about the 14 peaks.

The BMC - British Mountaineering Council.

The Mountain Bothy Association - yes, there are bothies in Eryri...

TAC - The Angry Corrie Scottish hillwalking fanzine, read it free.

Eryri - Snowdonia National Park.

Oggy Cam . Ogwen Mountain Rescue and a Ogwen Valley webcam.

BBC North West Wales.

Graham's Wales Photos. Loads of excellent pics on Eryri in here.

North Wales Photographs Beautiful photos of North Wales by Simon Kitchin.

Cambrian Mountains National Park A 'Should-Be' fourth welsh national park.

Snowdonia Society Charity which looks after the interests onf the National Park.

eryriway.org.uk Sister site to walkeryri, emphasising long distance trails.

Long Distance Footpaths in Snowdonia / Eryri.

Review of Websites.

This page is admittedly merely a collection of links to Long Distance Footpaths in Eryri / Snowdonia and North and Mid Wales. Paths are included if a sufficient distance of the route crosses the area. Some shorter trails are included too. I review the sites on the merits of presentation, images, ease of use but mainly on the quality of the route description. The point of a website like this for me is that you are able to read it and then follow the route on a map (and obviously therefore on the ground). Real detailed instructions would be a bonus, but not expected (only one site below manages this) as one would buy a guide if you wanted this information.

Cambrian Way, Wales's answer to the Pennine Way, without the crowds. Starts in Cardiff and ends in Conwy. This site is for the Cambrian Way Walkers' Association, and the only 'official' site I can find, probably as it is not technically an official national trail. However, this site is under construction and to be honest, not worth visiting but perhaps to keep an eye out for when they do actually finish it. The Ramblers have a brief description of the route, with a list of guide books here. In the meantime, there are two accounts of the Cambrian Way to keep you going. The first is by a guy called George Tod and describes the offical route of the Cambrian Way. The second is Across the Dragon's Back by Ann Bowker, a route covering all the 610m summits in Wales.

Offa's Dyke. Crosses the welsh border area from Prestatyn to Chepstow. This site has the information needed to plan accommodation along the route, and a distance calculator for each of the sections, but no information at all about the route. Guide books are, however, on sale. For a description of the route there are two accounts I have found. Again, George Todd provides an account and somebody called Prof. Walter W. Trimble provides another , well written account; "A walk through History". This isn't surprising as the guy is a professor of Journalism and Communication.

Glyndw'rs Way. Mid wales trail to commemorate the wesh hero. Nicely presented site, but unfortunately all the jucy bits you're after are free leaflets available free from tourist information (dead link). If the leaflets are half as good as the examples for the Anglesey Coastal Path, and put on the site as Acrobat files, then this would be an excellent site. Unfortunately, they haven't seized the opportunity - yet - and information, other than a factfile and a good overview map, is thin on the ground.

North Wales Path. The only official site I can find for this route. This isn't surprising, as the only section of this route that appeals is the section from Bangor to Colwyn Bay, and even that I think misses out on the best route. The site gives a brief overview of the route, and mentions some leaflets available from tourist information - at a cost. If anyone who is involved in the NWP reads this, visit the Anglesey Coastal Path to see how it's done. I'd imagine the problem with this path is that it crosses many different authorities, and i can imagine they couldn't agree as to who was to pay for the scheme.

Anglesey Coastal Path - I hold this site up as an example of what a Long Distance Footpath website should be like. It is definately the best of the bunch by a long shot. You want a general overview of the site, you got it. You want detailed maps and instructions, you got it. There are downloadable Acrobat PDF files describing each section of the route, plus colour maps in PDF format. You'll still need the Explorer maps mind, but you wont need a guidebook. Oh, and while it will probably mean little to most reading this, the site is in Welsh too, which gives it extra brownie points. The only reason this site is monoglot is time and resources. Anyone wanna volunteer to translate? (Croeso i chi gynnig eich amser i mi, a roi gysylltiad am ddim i'ch safle neu beth bynnag). This site is also well presented and professionally made, ample use being made of photos of the area.

Clwydian Way - Semi official site, by the Ramblers. You get a rough idea of the route from this site, but they are stingy on the detail as they have a guide for sale for the route. The site is simple, but has an annoying banner at the top for Wannado. However, it does give enough information for the adventurous to allow you to plan your own route, and an accommodation list.

Edge of Wales Walk. - Walk from Clynnog Fawr to Aberdaron, and even Ynys Enlli (Bardlsey). Well, you obviously dont walk to the latter, but this route includes a bimble round the island if the ferry's running. Some nice pics, but the site is let down with its route description. Understandably, as these guys are trying to establish a business to porter your bags about, so you can understand they only give this information to customers. So the website falls down on this point for me as I am reviewing the sites on the merits listed above.

Lleyn Coastal Path. The area's newst waymarked trail, and Gwynedd Council have provided a highly informative website on the path. You can download .pdf files with OS maps of the route, allowing you to easily plan your route. The OS maps are slightly stylised, meaning you will need proper maps however. The funny thing about the trail is that it's one i've wanted to walk for years, and i have a tracklogs file i planned to do this summer. Both routes are very similar, and I intend to follow this path in its entirety next easter (though I will do the 1st day as a day walk), with an extention for the route. That will be a proper LDP for Eryri, at 280km or so, so watch this space...

The only other route left is the Dyfi Valley Way. But as I cannot find any information other than this on the Ramblers site again, no comment. It's another buy a book job i'm afraid. V-G Walks have an account of the walk, including pics, maps and directions. It's a reasonable guide to the trail, with some sections of text added for interest, but I haven't the knowledge of the specific area to comment on the accuracy of the route description.

Oh, and there's also t the Meirionethshire Coastal Path. I'll update as soon as i've found some information on this.

Oh, and while searching for an icon for the Cambrian Way. i found this site for another walk, The St Davids Walk, from St David's to Bangor. Makes me even more determined to devise my own route that starts or finishes in Caernarfon!

Two more additions. The Monks Trod is a short trail in Mid Wales. Though there is no official website, the article gives some information about it. It is an ancient track, under threat from petrolheads. It starts at Ystrad Fflyr and finishes at Abbey Cwm Hir.

The Four Valleys Way is a local footpath devised by Gwynedd County Council and is a low route that starts in Bethesda and crossed from one valley to the next, until we reach Penygroes. Click on the link to get all the information you could need for the map, including maps in PDF format. Excellent. Again, an example of how a trail site should be. The only extras I'd like to see are maps in OS format, but blame that on the greed of the OS, not the author of this page.

And of course, there's my own suggestion of an Eryri Way that forms a circular LDP along with the Llyn Coastal Path. It is of the same technical difficulty as the LlCP, so it tends to avoid the high summits but giving excellent views of them along the way.

General Links

Snowdonia attractions Several great reviews about some of Snowdonia's better known attractions. 

English-welsh dictionary Links and resources to help you translate that welsh word into English.

Walking shoes - Another site that I found that sells walking shoes online.

Merrell Walking Shoes from fitnessfootwear.com, decent little site i found for Merrell walking shoes.

Whalley Warm and Dry - paramo stockists, great service and range.

V-G Walking and Backpacking. Inspirational website detailing one to three (and more) day walks around the UK.

Trekking Britain. Route descriptions & experience as opposed to guide book.

OutdoorsMagic - Forum based website, lots of information on here.

Phil George - Mountain Leader Training in Llanberis.

Peak and Fell Walking - A photographic guide to walking in Britain's National Parks.

Wild Tramp.co.uk - New site on walking in the UK. Looks promising.

Tracklogs IMHO the best mapping for PC.

MemoryMap Still good, but route handling clumsier.

Viewranger mapping for smartphones.

Fugawi and Anquet are also popular.

Quo The new kid on the block.

Multimap - Free online mapping.

Get a Map - Free online mapping from the OS

Access Land in Wales - online mapping from CCW.