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.

Taking it easy.

This is a new section dedicated to the easier walks around Snowdonia. They're generally level and on good paths. Particular difficulties are stated clearly. The start points are given, along with hints of how best to get there and the local facilities. Most routes will be circular, with any exceptions having excellent public transport to return you to your start point. All walks now have maps.

List of Easy Walks
	Cwm Bleiddiaid and the Eryri Way - 13km map Probably on the upper end of the easy walks. Information on this page for those contemplating walking this route on the 10th Jan 09 with the Snowdonia Society. moderate
	Stage 1a Caernarfon to Groeslon (11.5 km) Easy to moderate This is an easy start to the route, with a bit of coast, a bit of farmland and a pub at the end of it. No ascent here, mabye 50metres in total? maps to follow
	Stage 1b Groeslon to Clynnog (11.5km) Easy to moderate This route starts along the Lon Eifion Track, at the Tafarn Pennionnyn Pub and ends at Clynnog. It is the inland version, and does not visit the beach at Pontllyfni, a route that avoids the tricky part of this route. maps to follow
	Stage 2a Clynnog to Llanaelhaearn (11km) Easy moderate Your second day takes you over Bwlch Mawr and Gyrn Ddu, affording views of Snowdonia and down the peninsula. maps to follow
	Anglesey Coast Path Malltraeth to Pen-Lon 14km Easy/moderate A walk that's a bit longer than others in here, but can be cut short if needed.
	Llyn Padarn from Llanberis. 8km Easy Another straightforward walk with stunning views and beautiful woodland.
	Aber Falls from Bont Newydd. 4 km Very Easy An easy walk that leaves the carpark along a good, wide path that's suitable for pushchairs.
	Around Llyn Crafnant. 5.5 km Easy Slightly longer walk around Llyn Crafnant, Trefriw. The paths are excellent and wide, except for one awkward and steep part.
	Around Llyn Dinas. 5 km Easy Picturesque walk around this gem of a lake. Path is not suitable for pushchairs, but is nevertheless easy terrain.
	Llyn Parc. 6km Easy This trip in the forest passes a couple of lakes, and mine ruins. Easy walk, but the navigation in the plantation can be a headache.
	Aber Circuit. 7.5 kmEasy Moderate A straightforward ramble around Aber Falls and returning to Aber via a path, high above the valleyside. Easy gradient, steep descent at walk's end requires care.
	Ynys Llanddwyn 6km Easy Pleasant coastal walk whose main hazards are soft sand and the tide (don't get stranded!)
	Lon Gwyrfai - Gwyrfai Way. 9km Easy Lowland stroll from Caernarfon to Waunfawr station, where you can catch a train back and wait for it in the Snowdonia Park pub

The Forestry Commission has a wide range of waymarked trails in the area. Unfortunately the website gives scant details on the route, other than where to start and what colour posts to follow. While there is often a map at the car parks, the one at Crafnant was faded beyond udefulness. If only they provided a sketch map. It isn't that easy to browse the walks either, you need to search for them, or the link above takes you to all the Wales walks. The Gwydir area of Eryri is well served with low level trails, and the Crafnant circuit above is actually one of the FC's waymarked trails.

Trefriw Trails. Excellent site if you want to do some easy waymarked walks around Trefriw. It provides sketch maps of the walk so you can judge for yourself.

RSPB have some downloadable routes available in Acrobat PDF format. You cannot use these to navigate, but in tandem with a map are ideal.

All the routes have been graded : Very Easy (VE), Easy(E) and Easy Moderate (EM). The addional ratings are for the longer walks and are experimental at the moment (Moderate, Hard, Strenuous and Extreme). None of the VE, E and EM routes are technically difficult, and even the ones with the higher ascent will climb at a gentle gradient. Walk descriptions will emphasise any steep sections. Anything higher than this will be on the main routes site. Briefly the criterion for these gradings are as follows.

Very Easy. Short walk (4km or less) with less than 200m accent. The path is very good, being pushchair friendly. Navigation straighforward.

Easy. Medium Length walk (up to 8km) with less than 300m ascent. The path can be awkward at times, and not suited to pushchairs. Some navigation and map work recommended. Some longer walks with no ascent may also be classed as Easy. May be moderate under some conditions (hill fog, after heavy rain)

Easy Moderate. Longer walk up to 12km, only involving up to 500m ascent on footpaths. Will require navigational skills to determine way (this is true even for waymarked trails).

Moderate. Longer walks up to 15km but can include up to 800m of ascent and mountain navigation and scrambling. All walks from this rating onwards are proper mountain walks and should be treated with respect. L

Hard. For walks up to 20k that involve up to 1200m ascent.

Strenuous. Walks up to 30k that involve up to 2000m ascent

Extreme. Any walk that is beyond the Strenuous category.

Any route that exceeds the ascent for that category is automatically placed in the next category up, and a route might be promoted if it poses specific difficulties. But, just to make it more complicated, a route that may just creep into the next category by ascent, but is low on distance might be placed into a lower category! Simple... Or, i might just place them as a borderline walk - e.g. veryeasy/easy or Easy/moderate (not Easy Moderate !!).

Note that the ratings are quite difficult to apply to longer routes that are rather flat. As i walked along the local cycle track as far as Llanystumdwy this year, that classed as 22km. I wouldn't class that as Hard. As a guide, it might be worth placing long routes with low amounts of ascent in the next lower category. So 22km on the flat would be classed as Hard. So some routes will be classified in that way.

Yes, it's a system fraught with problems. I might bring out a mathematical formula to work out the difficulty. Factor in distance and ascent, then weigh this with specific difficulties such as scrambling, route finding and difficult terrain (such as Rhinogydd and Moelwynion).

There are also GPS files to download. I know these are easy walks, but the GPS files are there to help you visualise the route on your own mapping software.

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.