A circuit keeping within 1.5 miles of Snowdon summit and including a little steep scrambling. One camp or two. For experienced mountain-walkers only.
Map required: 1:50,000 O.S. Sheet 115
Day 1
Start from Rhyd-Ddu, which is also finishing-point. (if arriving Friday evening camp near village).
Take the Rhyd-Ddu path for Snowdon, which diverges L (NE) after 20 mins walking on a broader track. Follow this track for a further 30 mins until t crosses a wall by a wooden stepladder beside an iron gate, 3m. Beyond, go roughly N on hillside round base of crags – no path – gently uphill and trending slightly E, then short descent to Llyn Nadroedd in Cwm Clogwyn. Head ENE 350 yards to Llyn Coch and and descend NW on left bank of stream, follow E shore of Llyn Ffynnon-y-gwas and up to path on Bwlch Cwm Brwynog, 2.5m.
Cross the Bwlch and continue E on narrow path skirting crags at the head of Cwm Brwynog, down and up on same line to Llyn Du'r Arddu, .75m. Go NE up to the Llanberis track up Snowdon, crossing a minor path on way, and turn R (SE) on track, passing beneath railway and continuing on it about 300 yards more. Where track begins to mount above railway strike up SE to crest on L and go down (caution) SSE on short scree slope to boggy ledges trending down to R. Below these, steep scrambling down to Llyn Bach in upper Cwm Glas, 2m.
Descend ENE below Parson's Nose to Llyn Glas and from SE end of lake head SSE up a shallow rocky trough to a shoulder overlooking a marsh. Bear R up round shoulder to strike narrow path and head due S up gully to Bwlch Coch, 2,816 ft, 1m. Descend bS by very steep rough path to Pig Track on slopes of Cwm Dyli, turn L (ENE) along it .5m, then descend to shore of Llyn Llydaw. Just east of the causeway are possible tent-sites.
Day 2
Alternative A: for fine weather and good scramblers
From causeway follow Pony Track along Pony Track along shore of Llydaw, SW, and up to a point just short of Glaslyn. The nose of the Snowdon Gribin rises on L, SW. Climb it (very easy rock-climb) to Bwlch-y-Saethau and gain Watkin Path, 2m. Go down Watkin Path to the lowest of the zigzags below Bwlch Ciliau and thence descend rough hillside W by S, along the foot of a black crag on the R, and up to grassy moraine humps in Cwm Tregalan. Follow the line of humps S by W to a small disused reservoir and pass through the broken wall just beyond it. Strike up steep mountainside, heading a little S of W and picking the easiest route, to stony ground and rock ledges higher up, arriving on Bwlch Maderin, about 2,300 ft, on South Ridge of Snowdon, 1.5 m. Descend SW, soon following a stream, into Cwm Caregog. On reaching more level marshy ground steer due W across boggy slopes and join Rhyd-Ddu path at the stepladder where you left it. Here it is about 30 mins to Rhyd-ddu, 2.5m.
Cross Llydaw causeway and go SSW up plain path to ridge of Lliwedd. Here turn L (E) along broad crest for about 10 mins, then pick a way down SSW beside stream to old copper-mines, whence follow old track SW, almost level at first, to stone-slab bridge leading to foot of Watkin path, 2.5m. Turn R (NNW) up Watkin path .25m, until just short of ruined Plas Cwmllan a short path mounts on L to old quarry tram-track. Go WNW .25 m along track then strike up due W to Bwlch Cwmllan, 1,660 ft. Here a path leads due W through old quarry workings and straight on down to Rhyd-Ddu, 4m.
This route opening up some unfamiliar aspects of Snowdon is emphatically not for those whose walking has been all on lanes and bridle-ways. Apart from the rough terrain and the need to be competent with map and compass in mist, there are two sections of the route that could be trying to a backpacker unaccustomed to the mild rock-scrambling involved in many British mountain walks. The first of these comes in Day One and is the descent into Cwm Glas from the Llanberis track; here good route-finding is essential on a slope which, though not a precipice, is steep enough to be dangerous if descended carelessly. The second, in Day Two, is the climb up the Snowdon Gribin. Here the main trouble is the bulky and fairly heavy pack that has to be carried up it, making a short and very simple bit of hand-and-foot work feel steeper and harder than it really is. Unlike the Cwm Glas descent, which is unavoidable on the Snowdon Girdle, the Gribin climb can be avoided altogether by using the longer route called Alternative B. Neither of these two steep sections will be any problem to a backpacker with the judgement and experience acquired in previous mountain walks. It should be noted, however, that in any season except summer the Girdle could prove a more hazardous expedition.
With these warnings in mind, the route can be a most rewarding one, crossing as it does the six main ridges of Snowdon and using the normal tourist routes only for short distances. When I and two others did it on a September weekend towards the end of the holiday season we were astonished to discover what a vast extent of this most frequented of all British mountains is still wild and solitary.
Starting from Rhyd-Ddu at mid-morning, we carried supplies for one night's camping. It was a dry day with cloudy sky, and the Saturday walkers were in force on the path up from Rhyd-Ddu. But as soon as we left the path at the stepladder gate we entered the solitudes, making the long traverse round to Bwlch Cwm-brwynog (Past Llyn Nadroedd, most charming of mountain tarns) without meeting a soul. Cloud hung across the upper verticalities of Clogwyn du'r Arddu, where we paused for elevenses while watching climbers on the spectacular rock-routes, and thick mist lay on the broad Llanberis ridge above Cwm Glas to mask the start of the awkward descent. The details of this are worth noting. From the broad ridge you go straight down a short slope of scree, easy, and on the turfy shelf below it trend right down a wide ledge of moss and rock to a second similar ledge ending above a small rocky descent. Below this you come to another little easy scramble of ten to twelve feet and after that there is merely a rough and rather boggy slope into upper Cwm Glas with its rock-cradled tarn. On most of this descent you will find signs that others have used the route. The important thing is to trend to the right in moving down rather than to the left.
Once down by the classic buttress of the Parson's Nose you will find well-trodden paths, first down to Llyn Glas where we ate a lateish lunch – and then, less distinctly, up round the foot of slabby rocks to the wide scree-gully mounting to Bwlch Coch. We found it easiest to keep well to the right all the way up this; near the top, incidentally, locating and using the spring of water mentioned in Route 3, Section E.
On Bwlch Coch we met several people on their way round the Snowdon Horseshoe. We now crossed their route, descending the slithery path that heads straight down on the other side into Cwm Dyli. This was wet and needed care. The backpacker's burden adds an extra two stone to his weight and increases the tendency to slip. Down on the Pig Track (misspelled "Pyg" on the new map; it derives from Bwlch Moch, Pass of the Pigs) we turned east for a few hundred yards and located the steep grassy descent-path that drops from just short of Bwlch Moch, on the east of a stream, to the Llydaw causeway. By scrambling east along the lake shore a short distance you come to some flat terraces close to the water, and here we pitched two tents.
This site is less than an hour's walk from the main road, A4086, at Pen-y-pass. Anyone who wanted to do the Girdle and camp midway, without carrying a load, could do it with a little preparation beforehand. He – or some helpful friend – could transport tent and supplies in a plastic sack to the car-park at Pen-y-pass and thence carry the sack some way up the Pony Track towards Llyn Llydaw, depositing it in a secure cache for the walker to pick up and later return. To be certain of finding it, it is of course better if the walker makes the cache himself.
All cloud cleared from the tops next morning. We made a leisurely start after a leisurely breakfast in sunshine by the lake shore, and tramping up the Pony Track (sometimes called the Miner's Track) topped the rise where you first see Glaslyn lying dark under the summit-precipice of Snowdon. A step across the stream on the left and we were on the bony knees of the ridge that rises to the Gribin. The rocks of the Gribin look steep and a slope to the right of them appears an easier option; but the slope is treacherous and unsafe, while the Gribin is sound, solid and exhilarating. The pack is rather a nuisance in the narrow corners, but the ledges and holds are so large that it holds no danger for a person with two hands. Over the crest above, Bwlch y Saethau, we came quickly to the broad Watkin Path and followed it for ten minutes or more on its zigzag way down the flank of Lliwedd, leaving it on the elbow of the last zigzag to scramble straight down the slope of grass and boulders. Across the depths of Cwm Tregalan rose the last ridge to be crossed, the south ridge of Snowdon.
The big grassy moraine-humps, believed by the old Welsh to be the ruins of a city of King Arthur's time, gave pleasant walking to the remains of a stone wall at the foot of the steeps on our right. Here the precipitous flank of the south ridge eases its angle and you can walk up, picking a way round projecting steeper bits, to emerge on the saddle of Bwlch Maderin (not marked on the map) with the prospect of the Nantlle mountains stretching westward on the other side. Straight down from here on an easier but ankle-twisting slope brought us to the deserted hollow of Cwm Caregog, a place of hidden nooks and lonely streams where only the hill-shepherds go. Half an hour of walking westward across rock and heather and bog, and we were back at the stepladder gate, with another half-hour of easy track-walking down to Rhyd-ddu.
A good walker making an early start could complete this Girdle of Snowdon in one day without much difficulty, but a laden backpacker needs more time to do it with real enjoyment. The great advantage of backpacking over other forms of travel is that you stay longer in a beautiful environment and learn more from it; and on this brief journey you will learn that Snowdon, with its summit desecrated and its paths overcrowded, is still the grandest mountain in Wales.
Pennod allan o lyfr "The Mountains of North Wales" gan Showell Styles, a gyhoeddwyd gan Victor Gollancz, Llundain, 1973.
Gweler hefyd yr erthygl isod gan Jim Perrin, "The Tour of Snowdon" sy'n amrywio ar y daith uchod … ymddangosodd yn rhifyn Mawrth 2007 o'r cylchgrawn TGO.
The Tour of Snowdon
An evocative winter saunter through some of Britain's finest mountain scenery
Recently in this column I set out from Gorffwysfa and headed perversely downhill, ruminating as I did so on a Tour of Snowdon which, while less than a quarter of the length of the rather grander circuit of Mont Blanc, might match it in terms of folklore, history, anthropology – and perhaps even scenery, if you're a devotee of the green and seaward rain-softened hills of Wales.
The idea set me thinking and scanning the map – viewing the animated, starfish-like representation of Snowdon on it, pinky-beige, its radiating ridges, decorative, crag-stippled and lake-enclosing, the suggestion of motion continually hovering about them as though they were limbs waving gently in the depths of a clear pool. What other mountains have this dynamic quality? Even in linear representation its symmetries draw you in. There is a sculpted beauty to its design, a right succession that whirls itself into your imagination. How best to approach it, I wondered?
As I did so, I remembered an idea put forward by Showell Styles in his charming, knowledgeable, garrulous book The Mountains of North Wales (1974). He proposed "a rapid, mind's-eye journey", a girdling of the mountain at a distance of a mile or a mile and a half (no kilometric nonsense for old Showell!) more or less from the top, "touching the tourist paths only to step across them". Showell's idea grew on me. On the first day of the year, at an unconscionably early hour of the morning, I found myself at Gorffwysfa again, eager to see if the route I had planned could be accomplished in the course of a bright winter's day.
There was the question of a detailed route to be decided, of course. I had no intention of holding strictly to the mind's-eye one put forward by Showell, much though I had esteemed his guidance in the mountains and his commentary on them over many years. His imagined journey missed out places and pathways that I hold dear, features which I find attractive but always seem to lie somehow outside the main narrative of the place. But I thought in essence that his close circumscribing, his notion of summit-proximity was a good one, and in the event, both his route and mine began along the most popular route of them all to the summit - the Miner's Track.
Mist was filling the Nant y Gwryd as I set off from Gorffwysfa. Llynau Mymbyr invisible beneath and Moel Siabod heaving its whale-like, cloud-streamered bulk from the sea of vapours. Not sure that I couldvcomplete the circuit in a day I poled swiftly along the track to Glaslyn, and in full daylight now scrabbled mybway up the steep delights of Y Gribin to Bwlch y Saethau. The valley-mists were drifting up to lap against the moraines of Cwm Tregalan - land-forms so strange and pronounced that legends of a ruined city and Arthur's last battle have gathered around them - and I too drifted in that direction, picking my way down through the craglets on the slope before quartering south for a long half-mile beneath the fissile ribs of Clogwyn Du.
At this point, I had planned to follow the shelving scree-ramp that gives out on to Allt Maenderyn, along the ridge which leads up to Bwlch Main and a junction with the Rhyd Ddu path. But the manifest absurdity of having spent an hour and much labour on reaching a point I could have gained by a swift ascent of the top part of the Watkin path and a brief descent of the ridge dissuaded me, so I opted for the justification of a longer route and followed the broken boundary wall to Bwlch Cwm Llan.
From just below the bwlch to the west, I clattered my way down the wide track which served the small quarrying enterprises dating from the 1840s on these southern flanks of Snowdon, with the Eifionydd hills which so enhance the views in that direction by their shapeliness and the almost melodic notation of their outline in front. The January sun, still low in the sky as it crept towards its zenith, was lighting Cwm Garegog between Allt Maenderyn and Llechog ridges, ruddying its blanched grasses and inflaming the hillside rocks.
I'd arrived at Pen ar Lon, where the path from Ffridd Uchaf crosses the one I was following, so I sat down for a rest, drank water and ate chocolate, and on impulse, seduced by the light, decided to follow the Rhyd Ddu path towards Snowdon from here as far the spur above Llyn Nadroedd, then drop down past the steep little rocky bluffs on the north-western gable of the Llechog ridge into Cwm Clogwyn, with its fine and unjustly-neglected north-faced cliff.
It was poignant to revisit here. In 1970, when I was working on the climbing guidebook to Cwm Silyn and Cwellyn, writing up its rock-climbs had been part of my remit. The cliff's best buttress - a slabby red tower 400ft high that J. M. Archer Thomson, the pioneer of climbing here before the Great War, had referred to as "the gaunt, red crag" and described as "quite impossible", was then still unclimbed. I came here with Nick Estcourt, who was one of my frequent and favourite climbing partners, endlessly enthuastic and fiercely disputatious, in those years before his deathbin an avalanche on K2 in 1978. We had lazed around, swum in the lake and climbed two pitches up the "red crag" before a torrential cloudburst turned the rock into something like a vertical skating rink set under a waterfall and sent us scurrying for the valley. Next day we returned with a professor of mathematical logic in tow in case the problems we might face required a different perspective, and in damp conditions we finished the line - "climbing days, happy, more or less ..."
Apart from the cliffs of Llechog, the back wall of the cwm, which is the huge and broken west face of Snowdon, under hard snow in the best of winter conditions can give long, straightforward and characterful climbs where you never see another climber and that lead straight to the summit from a surprising direction. I'd been here many times over the years and had all this texture of memory from Cwm Clogwyn to sustain me over the long, rough mile from Llyn y Nadroedd to my next objective, Bwlch Cwm Brwynog. By the time I arrived there, aching and bemired, I was beginning to regret the choice of route. But once I'd skirted the margins of Llyn Ffynnon y Gwas, crossed the Snowdon Ranger path, which follows the west ridge of the mountain to the summit from here, and had gone through the bwlch under Moel y Cynghorion to drop down on the far side, with the huge boulder of Maen Du'r Arddu visible in front, the terrain eased. I boulder-hopped across the outflow from Llyn Du'r Arddu and strolled across the springy turf on its northern shore. This is the most dramatic and powerfully beautiful mountain setting not just on Snowdon, but perhaps in Wales or even (and if you have not been here yet, then rest assured that this is not simply hyperbole) in the whole of Britain.
There is a pseudo-legend frequently recounted about Cwm Cau on Cader Idris, 40 miles to the south: that to sleep there alone is to wake either as poet or madman, so sublime are the surroundings. It was applied to that location by the pious, and to a modern ear quite excruciating, early 19th-century poet Felicia Hemans, who had appropriated or purloined it from its original setting - here, beneath Clogwyn Du'r Arddu, the finest cliff in Britain.
I remembered blue-skied, vigorous days of my long climbing years on those sheer and intricate walls and slabs and aretes, and the challenge of doing them in better style and with less aid than the more gifted but less technologically advantaged climbers who were my predecessors as well as my older friends. I re-lived the climbs I'd done here with my son Will in his teenage years, before he went on to become one of the pre-eminent climbers of his day, and recalled too his account of coming here in the mist, alone with no-one else on the crag, and soloing the most notable of the routes from my day.
Moving on, I went in search of a favourite dark boulder near the entrance to an old mine adit that Bill Condry, who was one of Britain's finest field naturalists, had shown me years ago, to see if the purple saxifrage that entirely covers one side was yet showing signs of flowering, but it was far too early, so I zig-zagged up the grass slope to gain the railway track at Clogwyn Station, followed the Llanberis track as it diverged from the train-line towards the rim of Cwm Glas, then carefully negotiated a descent of shallow-angled slabs that lead down from the rim to arrive at tiny, rock-bound Llyn Bach beneath Clogwyn y Ddysgl.
It was well on into the afternoon now, the shadows deepening. I sat by the lake awhile in remembrance of Colette Fleetwood, a Bristol student who met her death here one winter's day 12 years ago and whose father is a friend of mine; and thought too how deadly these old, familiar hills can be to the unaware or the unwisely-led. After a time, I shouldered my rucksack and traversed round and down beneath the Parson's Nose into upper Cwm Glas, with its little lake, Llyn Glas, on an island in which grow stunted pines, shiny and fertilised from the herring gulls which throng the summit but nest and roost here. Beyond it, above the glacier-smoothed ribs and hummocks of Cwm Glas a path traversing across a stretch of scree slope, neither very loose nor very long, led me to the start of Crib Goch's North Ridge. Instead of taking that, I slipped round the corner, with Cwm Beudy Mawr opening up below me, and followed what was once a sheep-trod but is increasingly a thoroughfare beloved of Mountain Leader training and assessment groups across the mountain's east face to Bwlch Moch. Tiring now, I shambled off down the Pig Track to Gorffwysfa and its cafe and the completion of this eccentric 15-mile circuit of the hill. Next time the summit dons its cap of cloud and that befuddling summit fever has abated from your brain, you might try it or its endless variations, that will bring you to know the mountain far better than any straightforward ascent ...
Ol-nodyn:
Os dwi'n cofio'n iawn fe wnaethom y daith gynta hefo'r Clwb ar ddydd Sul, Medi'r 4ydd, 1989 … rhywun arall yn cofio?
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