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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.

Public Transport

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.

Nantlle Ridge Circuit From Rhyd Ddu.

Sat 1st July 2006

Distance and Ascent	16 km / 1200m	OS Map Required	OS Explorer 17 Landranger 150
Time	8 Hours	Difficulties	Steep, loose ascents. Sections of Grade 1 scrambling. Navigation over pathless sections.
Start Location	Car par (£3) at Rhyd Ddu Car park SH571525	End Location	as start
Grading	Hard	Facilities	Toilets at start of walk, Pub and cafe in Rhyd Ddu.
Public Transport	Sherpa Buses (S4) from Caernarfon and Beddgelert. WHR Train from Caernarfon.	GPS Files

I always look forward to the Nantlle Ridge. It surprises me every time. When you think you know the ridge, then you find another aspect to it. Today, the scramble over Drws Y Coed felt like the first time across, and the descent took me to a forgotten valley and strange new aspects to familiar mountains.

The route starts from Rhyd Ddu car park or WHR station. For another account of the route, click on Nantlle Ridge. I wont go over the exact route again, just that you still have the arduous climb of the Garn ahead. That said, it's time to just put your head down and get on with it. After all, the climb is only about 450m to the summit, and you know once there you have the rocky playground of Drws Y Coed to play on.

The summit of Y Garn is worth getting to for the view of the ridge ahead, and of Mynydd Mawr across the valley. So you follow the wall now, along a green path, to the start of the scrambling. There's a few moves that you need to do, but you can drop down to avoid them. Often i was climbing and my companions or other walkers who were behind me, would appear from my left, having found some devilishly easy route. As soon as it starts, the ridge is over, and there is very little satisfying scrambling left today. What is left though, is a thoroughly satisfying ridge walk.

From Drws y Coed, we followed a grassy ridge, staying on the crest as much as possible, up to the top of Trum y Ddysgl, before dropping back down across a broken grassy ridge to Mynydd Tal-y-mignedd and a deserved break.

The descent to Bwlch Dros-bern is not pleasant, being eroded and steep. The final summit will make up for that, being a rough scramble in places and a rough walk in others. My companions chose to follow the path straight to the base of the crags, and then took a line upwards that is rather mossy and steep. The less adventurous can carry on right before a not too obvious path leads left and up. The path that continues to contour the hill is the more obvious path, but this ascent becomes indistinct, steep and heathery. Once on this first path, the route finding is clear in most parts, with some interesting gullies on your left to peer down. The path does disappear across some of the boulder fields, but care should find you to the summit of Craig Cwm Silyn.

Purists might wish to continue to Garnedd Goch, which half out party did. I decided to take 30 mins nap. There are two summits, the second of which appears on the ground to be more important (it has a square stone tower), but the actual summit is the first one. Views here extend back over the ridge and across Cwm Pennant to the Hebog range.

The worst part of today's walk is the next bit. You descend back to Bwlch Dros-bern, the way you came. It isn't particularly easy going, the rocks often being loose. While we crossed the little raise in the bwlch and descended beyond it, it would appear best to descend to the valley below as soon as it it safe to do so as there is a very faint path that i could see coming from this direction. You basically need to make a line for the shoulder that stretches down from Tal-y-mignedd, and this would be quite tricky in mist. After the initial descent though, you should find yourself contouring around before a final steep grassy descent to the top of the incline in Cwm Dwyfor.

The views back towards the ridge are strange. Craig Cwm Silyn appears to consist of a ridge of pinnacles from this angle, looking quite formidable. Tal-y-mignedd just shows you it's green cliffs. Ahead, across the valley, lies another cliff. While it looks high, it's just the lower end of Moel Llefn. Cwm Pennant in between just looks welcoming.

You now follow the incline to a river. Beware, as the incline appears to cross the river, but has a gap in it. It could be jumped across, but it appears suddenly and it would be easy to imagine someone walking idly into the gap. Instead drop to the left of the incline, and across the river (a good place to re-supply on water), before continuing on along the old tramway. The track is exceptionally good in places, while in others it is barely apparent through the reeds and quite boggy. It is fortunately flat and easy, and takes you with little hassle to the footpath at SH 545 499.

This point is obvious, as the track contours around and above a small wooded valley. However, as we were busy talking, we forgot this quicker route and continued around the valley to SH 546 493. This turning off point is obvious as there is an old mine building and numerous slate collumns. Instead of passing along the track through a gate, you turn right along a vague track that leads steeply uphill. This levels out, and you can see the remains of the old slate quarries and an incline to the left. Follow this incline, and on the second level, before the incline is broken, you veer right.

This path becomes very obvious and leads to Bwlch-y-Ddwy-elor. Keep to the left of the barbed wire fence at the top, and along the clear path that's faced with slate chippings. This takes you into the cool of the forest and you should now be desending. When you do come to another forestry track, continue straight across. The main bit of navigation is when you find yourself at a point where there are tracks branching off left and right, an offset one ahead and a footpath along a stream directly ahead. Follow the footpath, and this line should find you out of the forest and onto open hillside.

Nothing left for it now, but to continue along this, and after a couple of kilometres you will arrive back at the start of the climb up Y Garn. Back track from here to the car park, or if you want a pint, follow the first road the path hits and the Cwellyn Arms is barely five minutes down the road.

Height Profile of the route (image courtesy of Tracklogs)

	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.

Digital Mapping

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.