Pete's Eats - The well known walker's and climber's caff in Llanberis.

Weather Links

MWIS. Weather forecast for Snowdonia.

Met Office. 5 day mountain forecast.

Snowdonia Snowline - Daily record of the Carneddau Snowline.

Metcheck weather - Longer range forecasts.

Advertise your Snowdonia Business here! Email for info.

Accuweather

Snowdon Weather Station Project. Weather data and Webcams of 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.

Marchlyn Mawr Circuit.
Distance and Ascent 10.5km, 960m ascent OS Map Required OS Explorer 17 Landranger 150 Time 5 hours. Difficulties Routefinding in mist, esp over Elidir Summit. Start Location Deiniolen End Location As start. Grading Moderate - Hard Facilities Roadside parking only. Public Transport Fequent bus service to Deiniolen from Caernarfon or Bangor. GPS File

The ascent is the same as the one done last year over to the Glyderau, but descending via Carnedd y Filiast in a reverse of the first walk published on Walk Eryri. This time, I knew of the pitfalls of the walk and this was essential as we had four hours in which to complete it before it got dark.

The walk starts at the crossroads above Deiniolen (SH593 631), the road is signed for Marchlyn before you turn into Deiniolen from the main road. The road is followed up and used to take you all the way to the lake. The track up has reopened again as of Feb 2008. You can take the track right and ascend the slopes of Elidir Fach from there, but we took the steep, direct route by the smaller lake, Marchlyn Bach. Crossing the road, you come to a locked gate. You climb over this and follow the wall to your right. A very faint path does start here, but fades out towards the skyline. In mist, just beware of the crags to the left.

Once the skyline is reached by a very steep pull, the walk eases. Elidir Fach is easily attained and from here you can walk a little further towards Llanberis to get a superb view of Llyn Padarn. In fact, it’s quite a god viewpoint all round. Behind you is a strange flat area, before the steep scree of Elidir Fawr is to be tackled. It is steep, but you’re quickly at the top of this (took us 10mins). There’s a small cairn at the top of the path, which is essential in finding the path if you are descending.

The ridge of Elidir Fawr will slow you down more than the scree. Rocks are often loose, and if it’s wet they can be treacherous. This is another great viewpoint, but today the cloud had closed in just as we reached the summit. All we got were tantalising glimpses of the view, which pleased nevertheless. It is here we spotted the only other people out on the hill this evening, a couple of guys who we’d spotted walking on the high path above Cwm Dudodyn from Y Garn.

The descent to Bwlch y Brecan is steep in places and the path often loose so care is needed. If you keep as close to the ridgeline as possible then you’ll be rewarded with views of Marchllyn Mawr to your left and the imposing bulk of Elidir behind you. Just keep an eye for the path back up to Mynydd Perfedd. It is quite faint, and if you miss it then a good overshoot feature is a nasty gully to the left that looks like a steep and eroded footpath.

The fence on Perfedd is a good feature in mist as it leads you directly to the summit shelter, but from here you’ll need to take a bearing in mist as the path is faint and the next kilometre or so a wide, flat ridge. Just make sure that you don’t veer to the right as the sheer cliffs on Filiast are led to by convex slopes that you could entice the weary over. However, if you spot the cliffs then they lead you towards a stone wall and a stile. Cross the stile and make your way to the summit, but again the path is faint or nonexistent, so good compass work is essential.

The summit is a jumble of shelters, which weren’t needed on a fine evening like this, though it was cool in the wind (August feeling more like April). Descent is difficult to find, but follow a faint path NNW where it crosses rocks and down to grass before veering left between higher ground (there’s a ring contour on the OS map). Beyond this it’s reasonably clear where the path starts its steep descent. The path does vanish near the col, but you’re nearly there by then and doesn’t cause any difficulty. There’s a small pool in the col from where the main path turns left to descend. It is worth carrying on to the 720m summit at the end of the ridge for the views down into the Penrhyn slate quarries.

Return to the pool and take the narrow path down. Carnedd y Filiast looked imposing tonight, possibly due to the evening light. Certainly it looked more than the hundred metres or so that it rose from the col.  The descent is a clear path, and is easy to follow down to the dam road below.

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.

Open Street Map - Open source mapping as featured on this site.

Multimap - Free online mapping.

Get a Map - Free online mapping from the OS

Access Land in Wales - online mapping from CCW.