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.

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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.

Cwm Llafar Horseshoe from Gerlan. map

Sat 8st July 2006

click for the map

Distance and Ascent	13.5 km / 1250m	OS Map Required	OS Explorer 17 Landranger 150
Time	7Hours	Difficulties	Steep, loose ascents. Sections of tricky boulder scrambling. Navigation over pathless sections or the whole route in mist!
Start Location	Gerlan Spar (SH632664), or Lay by at SH638660.	End Location	as start
Grading	Hard	Facilities	Spar shop at start of walk..
Public Transport	Buses from Bangor or Bethesda.	GPS Files

This is a part of ther Carneddau that is just a little wilder than the usual Ogwen and Aber ascents. You soon find yourself off the path, and either navigating over quaking mires or loose boulders. If you like a bit of off path action, this is for you. If you can't get off the path, i suggest the Llanberis path up Snowdon.

The walk starts from outside the Spar shop in Gerlan, a part of Bethesda. From the Spar, turn left uphill for a kilometre or so. You will arrive at a passing place with a bridge. This is the lay by mentioned above, and suitable for lazier walkers. Park here at your own risk, as there is room for a couple of cars but part of it is a passing place.

From this start of the walk, you cross the bridge ahead and follow the road a short way. You arrive at a fork in the road, with a faded footpath board marking the left turn. Follow this, and the stile into the first field. The path is intermittent, and you need to keep an eye out for the wayposts to navigate across this rough farmland. It's simple enough, and the path soon becomes easy to follow along the south bank of the Afon Llafar.

You can follow this path as far as you like, but you need to be making for the higher ground on the opposite side of the valley, marked as Braich y Brysgyll on the map. This is the start of the Elen ridge. A good point to strike out from is where the path passes a few sheepfolds on the opposite side of the river and there are some ahead on the same side. Between these the path crosses a wall (SH 648 654) which you can follow to the river.

Take your best guess to cross the flat land, we followed a small stream (not marked on the map) that had short grass, but was very boggy. Care will be needed to cross here under wet conditions. Tack up to the first summit on the ridge, barely much more than a few rocks at the start of the ridge but you are already at 500m.

The journey becomes much easier now, as there is a path to follow. It is steep and grassy in places, with some flat sections. Foel Ganol is a welcome respite if you like a break on the way up, but nothing will save you from the final, loose, relentless pul up Yr Elen. The only redemption is that once the path flattens out, you are on the top; no false summits here.

It is an airy viewpoint, as was the ascent, and you can peer into Cwm Caseg and it's tiny tarn. At the 'summit' to the left, you can look down a scree filled gully that is apparently an ascent route. What is also clear is the magnificent ridge walk you have ahead. From Yr Elen to Carnedd Llewelyn, over to Dafydd and down Mynydd Du.

It is straightforward now. An easy descent to Bwlch Cwm Caseg (named from the Cwm, un-named on the map) then leads to the last bit of noticable effort as you regain altitude to the top of Carnedd Llewelyn. This can be tricky in mist, and i leave it to you and your map to work the best route in that case.

There is but a single shelter here, so stuff in and make sure old ladies with walking poles don't poke your eye out as they leave. Today it was exceptionally windy, the chill must have brought the temperature down to close to freezing. Of course, i'd laughed at the thought of bringing gloves the night before.

Now you're warm again, you follow the most obvious path southwards and cross the wide, easy ridges of Bwlch Cyfryw-drum and Cefn Ysgolion Duon. There is some easy scrambling here if you want it, but nothing exciting, and all avoidable. Make the most of the views here towards Yr Elen, Pen yr Helgi Du and the Glyderau, and you are atop Carnedd Dafydd before you know it.

There is a complex of shelters here, but none provided respite in today's hoolie. So instead of lunch, it was a descent instead. From the shelters, continue towards the summit and drop down to it's right where a path of consolidated scree leads down, which still needs a care as it would move underfoot. Careful navigation is required here, as you can clearly see the grassy ridge of Mynydd Du ahead, but beyond the bouldery slopes of Carnedd Dafydd.

You will need to cross these boulders, and this proves to be the trickiest part of the walk so far as you downclimb over these rocks. They are generally grippy, and there are short sections of grassy path inbetween sections, so it isn't a relentless scramble down. Just keep slightly left and away from the cliffs and possible misleading ridges.

Once past these boulders, what's left is a pleasant, grassy ridge walk that takes you down to the path you left this morning. There are some exposed sections on the right if you want them, with revealing views of Carnedd Dafydd's cliffs. Once you are back on the path , retrace your steps back to the starting point.

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.