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.

Glyderau from Pen y Pass.

click for the map

Saturday 21st January 2006 (10km, 800m ascent).

This is a slightly unusual walk in many respects. One is that you must be mad if you've got to PYP and not gone up Snowdon. The other is that most people take the Glyderau on from the other side. I of course mean from Ogwen and not in any spiritual sense. This is an exploration of the less known side of the mountain, and hopefully too, less popular. Be warned though, that the path is very indistinct and is often difficult to follow when visibility is good.

We start by crossing the stile to the left of the youth hostel, or rather by the gate as there was a giant wheely bin in the way when i did it. The path takes you left and you are soon crossing boggy land. At this initlal stage, the path is realtively easy to follow. If you spot some crimson splotches of paint on the rocks, then these way mark the route (unofficially) and are worth following (though they disappear when most needed). Within minutes, the lake of Llyn Cwmffynnon appears below Moel Berfedd. This minor summit is surely one worth visiting at some point, being in such a central position.

Our path takes us up the broad shoulder of Glyder Fawr, and from now on, care should be taken with navigation as the path is often lost. Just ensure you are going uphill, as bar one flat area (with a large rocky pavement), it is all slog. Once you can see the summit rocks, there is no reason why you cannot aim straight for it, especially as the path i followed vanished. Others aimed off to the left to hit the summit plateau further west. However, the summit is rather obvious, having two large mounds of jagged rocks. You'll need to climb up both, just for the hell of it.

Today, the summit was thick with mist. Initially i was disappointed, as i wanted a few shots from the top. But it turned out that visibility to nearby summits wasn't exceptional anyway, and it must be said that the Glyderau are a location that becomes more atmospheric in mist. The jagged, frost-shattered rocks loom darkly in the mist, the photos on this page don't do them justice. The mist did clear once off Glyder Fawr.

You must veer right towards Bwlch Y Ddau Glyder, where a path should see you safely, and without incident to Castell Y Gwynt. This is an interesting crenellation of vertically shattered rock that is nothing but a distraction on these mountains. What other, less well endowed, hills would do for a summit like this! Keep close to Castell y Gwynt, or better still, scramble over it, before crossing the boulder strewn summit of Glyder Fach. The summit proper is a pile of rounded boulders, so contrasting in character to it's larger sibling that lies only a kilometer away. Today i skipped the summit and skirted it to the left to find the Cantilever and the Miner's Track.

OK, stop here and take your photos if you must. Try and tip it too, whatever. You won't be alone. The path that veers left takes you to the top of Bristly Ridge, don't go this way (it is easily recognised as it has a cairn). Instead carry on over the summit to find the Miner's Track. It is a decent path in places, and easy to lose in others (i managed it a few times). But you soon arrive at the bwlch where the Miner's Track leaves Ogwen and drops down to Pen y Gwryd. Follow it right over some boggy ground, there are dried up ponds here, so be careful in poor visibility. When you see the ground dropping away, veer right. I took an interesting diversion left, into Cwm y Caseg Fraith and its lakelets before cutting across and finding the path proper.

From now on, the path is easy to follow, although rough. It has a stream flowing down much of it, and is generally a steep descent. The only problem now is the final section that is exceptionally boggy. There is a faint path, but aim for the stile or footbridge that you should be able to spot in most situations from the higher ground just before. The path from here is a couple of hundred metres, and you're in the Pen Y Gwryd Hotel for a pint of whatever.

Height Profile of the route (image courtesy of Tracklogs)

GPS Files

	Recommended route in tracklogs format.
	Recommended route in Memorymap format.
	Route in .gpx format, this should load into EasyGPS and then you can load it onto your GPS or convert it. See this page for more information about different file types.

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.