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.

Snowdon South Ridge from Rhyd Ddu map

15th August 2006

click for the map

Distance and Ascent	14 km / 1100m	OS Map Required	OS Explorer 17 Landranger 150
Time	5 Hours	Difficulties	Some steep sections, exposure on sections.
Start Location	Car par (£3) at Rhyd Ddu Car park SH571525	End Location	Llanberis
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

Snowdon is always calling. It's busy, and brash, but always draws you back. The way to do it is to catch it when it's not so popular, like in the rain. So again, i started from Rhyd Ddu, and along the old slate track to Bwlch Cwm Llan. The half collapsed bridge along here is currently being rebuilt.

It's an easy walk up to the Bwlch, before you need to take a hell of a slog off to the left and up the South Ridge. What follows is a quiet (for Snowdon) and wild walk up the tallest mountain. It ambles along flat sections, before you scramble up some steep sections, and then some more flat bits. Finally, you arrive at Bwlch Main, and the ridge narrows and exposure increases. The exposure is never that bad.

Continue along the pleasant ridge, what makes it the best 'walk' up Snowdon in my opinion. Pyg and Miners may have the view of Snowdon, but aren't nice paths. Miners has that scree run and the Pyg crosses smooth polished stone sections. Oh, and they both have those atrocious zig-zags. South Ridge is a ridge walk, so gets my vote! The summit cafe appears quite unexpectedly, and we decided to go in for a coffee this time.

The cafe is getting demolished soon, 4th of September (open on the 3rd for a final time), so i thought i ought to step inside it. Nearly twenty ascents (or more, i forget) and i'd never partaken the pleasures of the Snowdon Cafe. It looks so small from the outside, so i was a little shocked at the size of it. Full of a mix of wet walkers and tourists transported by train who looked like they were in Butlins. I was perplexed by the train passengers with walking poles though, perhaps they used it to prod less deserving walkers out of the way. "Up Snowdon? Free? How utterly beggarly! I shall employ my stout stick to make my way to the hot beverages!".

Descent (without toutching the trig, shock horror!) was met with even more of the characters that the mountain attracts. It has to be said that the Llanberis path attracts them all. We initially walked past a group of elderly walkers. Nothing strange about that. What was utterly bizzare was the fact that they were roped together. On the Llanberis path? That one beats the trekking poles on the train. I suppose all others we passed were an anticlimax, including someone who was rather anxious to hear that the summit cafe served whisky, and countless faceless individuals who had to ask if it was far to the top. Being an honest, down to earth Welshman, they got the truth and grunted onwards unhappily.

Eventually, we got down past this carnival of the wet and clammy, after a close encounter with a pair of seagulls (they didn't push their luck, fortunately for them) and into the village of Llanberis. Of course, the walk has to end at a pub, but i decided against the double whiskey (i'm having that now).

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.