Snowdonia Links

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.

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.

Mynydd Sygyn Revisited. (pics soon).

Cwm Bychan to Llyn Dinas

15th May 2005 (8.5km, 410m ascent).

Anyone who read the first Sygyn route, may be aware i suggested an alternative route to these hills. Well, simply put, that's what this is. I decided i wanted to see what the ascent from Cwm Bychan was like, as the direct ascent from Beddgelert was far too steep.

The route starts in Beddgelert, where you go towards Gelert's Grave, but cross the footbridge over the river to catch the footpath down Aberglaslyn Pass. It's a not very pleasing, concrete path to start with, but this soon becomes a proper path. As soon as you can, follow the path that skirts the river, and not the better path that keeps to higher ground. This higher path is the former (and future) Welsh Highland Railway, and contains a couple of tunnels, now closed. The first time i went this way, i went through these tunnels, and having forgotten my torch, it wasn't the best experience I ever had. The second tunnel is 300m long according to my map, and pitch black in the middle. You pass the exit later.

However, we need to follow the Fisherman's Path, which is mainly over polished rock and is dangerous in the wet. Some parts are diffcult to manouver round, such as this rock ledge (see picture) which one would need to crawl or remove a large pack to get by. Today though was warm and dry, and the path is a breeze, with via ferrata (ok, metal handles) to help you along. There are pictures in the gallery of the various aids installed on this path to make it passable. All along this section, you travel along the Aberglaslyn Gorge, and it is quite a sight.

Eventually, we reach a roadbridge over the river, but our path travels left, up some stone steps. It is a pleasant walk fron here, through meadows and forests, to Cwm Bychan. You pass the exit to the railway tunnel en route. Plus, I now realise, loads of rambling groups who seem to like this area. The path climbs gently up past remains of the copper mining industry, revealing views towards Penrhyndeudraeth and Harlech. The path continues until you get to the bwlch above Grib Ddu (SH 606 481) where the views of Snowdon open up. There is a path up Moel y Dyniewyd from here, which i will get to do one day, i needed to be in Beddgelert in just over an hour so I had to head on down the path to Llyn Dinas. There is a signpost here that shows which way you need to go.

At this point i saw a large pack of ramblers, making their way noisily down the path, so i decided to wait till they were out of sight before descending the track to Llyn Dinas and follow the track back to Beddgelert. See previous route for details.

Click on icons to download the route in Tracklogs and Memorymap format.

Today's route (same as variation on a theme last week)

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.