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

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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.

Aran from Beddgelert. map

26th April 2007

click for the map

Distance and Ascent	14km, 800m ascent	OS Map Required	OS Explorer 17 Landranger 150
Time	5 hours	Difficulties	Off path navigation.
Start Location	Beddgelert	End Location	as start
Grading	Moderate	Facilities	Pubs, shops and cafes in Beddgelert. Cafe, toilet Bethania.
Public Transport	Sherpa Buses to Beddgelert.	GPS Files

The Aran is a striking mountain from all angles. If you view it from across Llyn Gwynant it's definitely more deserving of the Welsh Matterhorn title than the usurper across the valley known as Cnicht. Not only that, but it provides possibly the quietest walks on the entire Wyddfa massif. It’s a bit of a blot on my walking too, having been nearly climbed a handful of times before finally ascending it after work last year. The only ‘bad’ thing about the hill is that it’s dwarfed by Snowdon. You just feel obliged to be going up the higher neighbour and ignoring this summit that can appear no more than a pimple in the Snowdon foreground from some angles. Ignore this mountain and it’s your loss, I don’t care; all the more for me!

The walk actually starts from a layby a few k outside Beddgelert, but I’d suggest starting from Beddgelert itself and adding a bit of distance to the walk. From the main bridge in the centre of the village, turn left down past the Tanronnen Inn, past the toilets and cross the footbridge across the river. From here the path carries on past some houses, across a minor road and through a large kissing gate before continuing on to another minor road less than a kilometre away. At this road, turn left and across a bridge to the main road where you turn right.

Within a hundred metres or so, you arrive at a few houses with a footpath sign pointing at them. Continue towards the garages, and you see the footpath to the left. It is pretty clear at this point, so make the most of the track and follow it uphill, through the gorse and rhododendron until you reach a field near a farmhouse. The hillfort of Dinas is to your right, and the track leads to the path to the left. Follow the path and the footpath markers towards the farm, until you see a clear track lead uphill and towards a gate.

Once through the gate, it’s a lot more difficult to keep on path. It comes and goes, but try and make for the skyline following any paths that you can see on the ground. On the map, try and make a roughly straight line from the farm via Cocyn Perthi and up to Graig Wen. We found that once past the initial slog, the ridge eases off and a quite clear track was there to follow. The views at this point are quite stunning in all directions.

Follow the track as far as possible, it then turns into a strange earthwork – having a path either side of a raised middle section. Continue with this, and by the time it disappears, you’ve almost reached the summit. Head for high ground, and you arrive at a small cairn and a false summit that’s ideal for the first stop. An added bonus is that there’s now a quite clear footpath to follow across the Graig Wen ridge and up to Yr Aran.

Follow the path across the easy undulating ridge, but just take care not to get tangled up in the old fence wire that’s hidden in the grass. Alongside this are the old metal fence posts, which serve as a navigational aid for this walk in poor visibility. So the final section, towards the quite dramatically pointy summit from this angle, is steep but straightforward.

From the top you have a great view. Today you could see a grass fire across on Carnedd y Cribau. There is very little shelter on top though, so on a bad day try and lunch on the slopes on the way up or down. The path down the other side is quite steep, and you need to follow this down to a wall, where the path branches off. Left takes you to Bwlch Cwm Llan and an easy to navigate path to Bethania. Right is a grassy ridge, that’s not so obvious. However, there’s more of a path than the map would suggest.

It’s a pleasant walk down, but keep an eye on the path that leads to the old copper mine to the left. It’s not obvious, unless you look down exactly where it is. There is a tiny cairn, but barely 10 stones! It’s also quite steep, so care is needed. It’s practically a scramble down, but eases off for a while until you arrive at the copper mine. Again, it steepens, quite drastically down a bit of a scree slope before again easing off and following a very easy track down to the Watkin Path. You will need to turn left though, and not follow the old tramline as it takes you over a dangerously steep incline.

The Watkin Path is easy, no explanation needed. Just keep an eye out for the waterfalls to the left and the incline to the right that you’ve managed to avoid. Once on the main road, turn right and past the café that was thankfully open today. Continue for a short distance, and turn left across a bridge on the first junction. Cross the bridge, and turn right towards the farm, Llyndy Isaf. Continue through the farmyard, and follow the path along the shore of Llyn Dinas.

This is straightforward now, so continue to the end of the lake, and past a footbridge keeping to the same side of the river. You pass Sygyn Copper mine, and after a short stretch on a minor road (passing a centre for Search and Rescue dogs) you arrive at the path you left this morning. Retrace your steps to the morning’s starting point and have a pint for your efforts.

Height Profile of the route (image courtesy of Tracklogs)

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.