The Welsh 3000s – about thirty-two miles and 18,000 feet of ascent
A traverse of the Welsh peaks over 3,000 feet from north to south, camping on every summit. Mountain experience necessary.
Map required: O.S. 1:50,000, Sheet 115
Note: Mountain-top backpacking is a specialised form of the pastime. An ultra-lightweight tent (weight under three and a half pounds) is essential and should be capable of standing up to high winds. Adequate protective and spare clothing has to be carried, and food has to be chosen for its nutriment in relation to weight. A solo backpacker on this journey should try to keep the weight of his pack down to about twenty pounds, bearing in mind that it will be carried on the traverse to Crib Goch summit which involves hand-and-foot scrambling. For this traverse the stout staff which is a recommended help on the rest of the journey can be left on Carnedd Ugain.
A. The Northern Carneddau
Starting from Aber on the north coast, go SE up lane for Aber Falls but in .75 m bear L over bridge (Pont Newydd) and steeply up lane ESE heading for Llyn Anafon. Lane becomes rough track and zigzags N then SSE before following Afon Anafon up to lake, 4.5 m from Aber. Strike up steep mountainside from lake, SE, to col at 2,350 ft between Drum and Foel Fras, .75 m. Turn R (SW) up ridge to O.S. cairn on Foel Fras, 3,092 ft, .75m. CAMP. Follow broad ridge S and SW over minor summit, Garnedd Uchaf, 1 m, then up just E of S, about 250 ft rise, to top of Foel Grach, 3,196 ft, .5m. CAMP. Down .25 m S then a .5 m rise of 400 ft SSW to top of Carnedd Llywelyn, 3,485 ft. CAMP. From summit cairn steer slightly W of NW on small path down to neck connecting to Yr Elen and on up to Yr Elen summit, 3,157 ft, 1 m. CAMP. Descend nose of rock and scree NW about 1,500 ft then SW into glen of Afon Llafar to pick up track down L bank of stream, 1.5 m. Follow track NW to lane and into Bethesda, 1.75 m … 4 summit camps, about 12.5 miles.
Aber has a station on the main line to Holyhead (!), so there are plenty of trains and you can get there quite easily from anywhere in Britain. I got off my train in the mid-afternoon of a late September day, mild but overcast and inclined to be windy, and crossing A5 (A55?) took to the narrow lane that runs into the hills behind Aber village. In my bulging pack was a lightweight one-man tent and a supply of basic necessities sufficient for four nights' camping. The four northernmost tops of the Carnedd range were to be the first camp sites of a journey planned to include a camp on the summit of every Welsh mountain over 3,000 feet; fourteen of them.
The idea of this somewhat unusual backpacking trip originated as a kind of penance. Years before I had raced from end to end of the fourteen 'three-thousanders' (making a record that lasted for no more than two years) and had afterwards felt a little ashamed of treating these grand mountains as a race-track. An obvious way of making amends for traversing them as quickly as possible, I thought, would be to do the same traverse as slowly as possible; and the only reasonable way of doing this was to camp successively on each summit, taking fourteen days over it instead of the twelve hours of the previous trip. I resolved to make the journey from north to south, finishing on Snowdon, and to camp 'within a biscuit-toss' of the summit cairns. The main problem was food supply, for even on minimal rations I was not prepared to carry more than four days' food at the most, and on the highest ridges of North Wales you are about as far from a shop as you can get. Clearly I would have to break the journey at several points in order to go down to towns in the valleys and return with renewed supplies. On the Carneddau the opportunity for the first foraging break was plain to see – the fourth three-thousander, Yr Elen, was only three miles as the crow flies from Bethesda, though indeed I would have to descend 2,600 feet to get there. This is why I was starting the first section of the walk equipped for four summit-camps, with the other two Carnedd summits forming the next section.
Three-quarters of a mile along the lane in its wooded glen I came to the wicket-gate, with parking for cars near it, which indicates the path to Aber Falls, a path I had often followed before. Today I swung left across the old stone bridge and kept on up the very steep lane – in half an hour it became a stony track – that climbed along the right bank of the Anafon stream into a wild cwm under the flank of the Carnedd ridge. It seemed a long tramp to the lake, Llyn Anafon, that lies in the cwm and when I reached it I took a longish rest. The semicircular basin of craggy hillsides looked steep everywhere, but I could see a reasonable line south-east up the slope where some little streams came down and started to climb it when my unaccustomed muscles had recovered.
It was a Saturday; there had been half a dozen cars by the Falls gate, and two anglers fishing in Llyn Anafon. But from now on I saw no one, and under the darkly clouded sky the vast bare slopes looked singularly lonely. The two anglers had gone when I looked down on the lake from halfway up the 700-foot climb; probably home to supper, for it was six o'clock – an odd time, I realised, to be climbing towards a high mountain-top. The slope I was on was not at all hazardous, but I was glad of my holly staff for balancing up on steep footing and found it equally useful when I gained the grassy saddle at the top and met the full force of a strong westerly gale. Nothing is more fatiguing, especially with a heavy pack, than repeated stumble and recovery; and for this reason alone the staff is recommended backpacking equipment. The wind was furious as ever on Foel Fras summit, reached after 700 feet of easier ascent south-west. A stone wall crosses the top and I found a site for the tent in partial shelter in the lee of it, a little before seven o'clock.
The tent was one I had had made to my own design with absolute minimums in mind. It was a single-pole ridge of proofed cotton, 4 feet wide by 3 feet high at the front tapering to 18 inches by 14 inches at the foot, and weighed 3.5 lbs complete. Inside it I could just manage to cook on a Tommy cooker, lying on my side, and this I now had to do because of the gale outside. I was carrying a small aluminium flask of paraffin and hoped to conserve fuel by using fires on some of the summits, but on the Carneddau there is no heather and little other fuel. For water-supply I had only a one-pint flask which I had filled on the way up from the lake, at the same time taking a long drink from the little stream.
Since my daily rations on this journey were basically the same throughout, I will detail them now. For this four-day section I was carrying four eggs, a bag of porridge oats, thirty-six crisp bread biscuits, a packet of sweet biscuits, a four-slice portion of fruitcake, butter, cheese, sugar, salt, instant coffee, a good supply of chocolate and sweets, and four rissoles or meat rolls. Supper on Foel Fras was a meat roll heated in the lid of the billy, crisp bread and butter, a slice of cake, sweet biscuits, and coffee. It was dark when I had finished it but I spent half an hour building a low shelter-wall of rocks to deflect some of the wind from the tent. A final pipe of tobacco, and then into the sleeping-bag. To save weight I was doing without a ground-insulation pad, relying on padding my underside with spare clothing; but in spite of this I slept snugly for nine hours, at 3,092 feet above the sea.
Breakfasts of porridge, boiled egg, and coffee proved to my own satisfaction that I was genuinely at home on the summits and not just bivouacking there. I have often been told that if you drink the water that eggs have been boiled in you get warts in your stomach; I have been doing this at intervals for nearly half a century, and warts have not yet declared themselves. My limited water-supply meant that the egg-water had to be used to make coffee. An hour later I had discovered that this economy had not been necessary after all, for on an after-breakfast prowl round the flat but very stony summit plateau of Foel Fras I found a spring of clear fresh water not more than five minutes' walk south-east from the O.S. cairn. After this discovery I made a point of investigating every summit I camped on for a handy spring, and found – perhaps surprisingly – that six of the fourteen peaks have fresh water within ten minutes of their summit-cairns.
The wind had blown itself out and the day was cloudy-bright with a cool breeze. I spent it in a leisurely exploration of the four-topped ridge that runs out north-west to the summits of Yr Aryg, Bera Bach, Bera Mawr, and Drosgl. Anyone reading the itinerary will have noticed that the six summit camp-sites of the Carneddau are less than an hour's walk apart and perhaps wondered how a backpacker would spend his days on such a journey. Well, this is one way. It is an unrivalled opportunity for getting to know a mountain thoroughly – the crests, cwms, and minor tops which have to be ignored in the usual day's work of getting to the summit and down again. I did the same from the next site on Foel Grach, 3,196 feet, to which I moved camp that evening, passing the stone refuge hut just north of the summit. There was a good and sheltered site below a shelf of rock twenty feet from the cairn (a biscuit-toss, with the wind in the right direction) but no water. To go from Foel Grach to the Foel Fras spring for water, and back again, would take little more than an hour; but I got my water that day in the course of an exploratory ramble down to the two lakes a thousand feet below on the east side of Grach, Melynllyn and Dulyn. It was a rewarding walk materially as well as scenically. I took the empty rucksack and billy as well as the flask, and climbed back again not only with plenty of water but also with a sackful of dry bilberry twigs which gave me a cooking-fire for supper. A handy niche in the rocks near the tent made a good fireplace; and there was enough twig-fuel left to cook porridge and boil an egg next morning.
Still in the same cool and cloudy weather, I moved camp on along the ridge after breakfast, a short and stony scramble to the top of the second highest mountain in Wales. The summit of Carnedd Llywelyn, 3,485 feet, is a big plates of turf and stones, its highest point indicated by a large cairn and a circular stone shelter a few yards from it. I was able to pitch the tent four paces from the cairn, and in pottering round my new home later on I found an ample spring six minutes' walk from the cairn, in the direction of Carnedd Dafydd; the spring is easily found in a spread of dazzling white quartz.
The day darkened and there was more than one brief shower as I took lunch down the south-east ridge for a look at Craig-yr-Ysfa. It was pleasant to scramble about unladen and with all the time in the world, instead of the usual purposeful mountain-walking. I collected plenty of dry whinberry twigs from the saddle and climbed back in the afternoon, pausing to watch a pair of climbers on the spectacular Pinnacle Wall. Three small parties of walkers crossed the Llywelyn summit while I was brewing coffee at teatime, and though the tops were clear of mist two of the parties were uncertain of their descent route and stopped to ask my advice. Mist did come down at nightfall and an almost windless night gave me nine hours of sound sleep. I do not think I have ever slept so soundly as I did above 3,000 feet. But the fourth camp was to be so restful.
I spent a lazy morning making adjustments to my gear and writing up my log, for the mist was still thick on the summit. After noon it cleared, blown away by a very strong westerly wind that swept across the plateau and made it difficult to get a fire going with the last of my twigs, the idea being to give all the utensils a boiling-water wash. When I packed up and started down the narrow ridge for Yr Elen the gale was as fierce as it had been on Foel Fras. Yr Elen has a small summit, fairly level and well-padded with vegetation, with steep crags falling on three sides, jutting northwards from the main crest like a peninsula and commanding a grand view over the Bethesda valley to the Menai Straits and Anglesey. There was little or no shelter from the gale, and before I turned in that night I found a niche in the crags on the lee side of the summit and ran out the light fifty-foot nylon line from tent to niche, so that if the tent blew down in the night I could feel my way to shelter. I had of course stocked up with water from Llywelyn spring before scrambling down and up to Yr Elen.
I did not have to use my 'lifeline' but the flapping of the tent and the roar of the wind in the crags made sleep intermittent. If the tent had not had a sewn-in groundsheet – an absolute essential for this kind of camping – it might possibly have carried away. But at 5 a.m. the gale died down suddenly, and two hours later the morning was so bright and the breeze so gentle that I was able to breakfast outside and enjoy the first warmth of the sun as it topped the higher Carnedd crest. It was a brisk pack-up this morning for the descent to Bethesda. The way down north-westward on the nose of Yr Elen picks a route between the little upper crags, steeply and uncomfortably but quite safely. By 9.30 I had descended the 1,600 feet to the track by the Afon Llafar, having left the summit at 8.15, and was among the shops of Bethesda before 10.30.
B. The Southern Carneddau
Leave Bethesda on the route by which it was entered, regaining start of path up Afon Llafar but leaving it where it crosses the tributary Afon Cefnllusg just past the highest cottages, 1 m. Steer SE up broad ridge to summit of Carnedd Dafydd, 3,424 ft, 2m, an ascent of 2,900 ft from Bethesda. CAMP. Descend SW and along ridge SSW and finally S to summit of Pen yr Oleu Wen, 3,211 ft, 1.25m. CAMP. Very steep descent path SSW, dropping 2,200 ft in 1 m, to A5 at Pont Pen-y-benglog, Ogwen. (Alternative and easier way down is via E ridge of Pen yr Oleu Wen down to Afon Lloer and by right bank of stream to A5 at E end of Llyn Ogwen.) Catch early bus – school term only – or hitch the 4 m down A5 to Bethesda … 2 summit camps, about 6 miles.
It should be emphasised that the map-distances in miles given in my itineraries for this journey often have little or no relation to the time and effort required to cover the ground. "Allow twenty minutes for every map-mile to be covered and add thirty minutes for every 1,000 feet to be climbed" – the old-established Naismith's Rule is a good rough estimate for hill-walkers. Carrying a load, it took me just over three hours to climb the 2,900 feet from Bethesda to the top of Carnedd Dafydd, including rests, so if the backpacker substitutes "sixty minutes for every 1,000 feet to be climbed" he will be estimating pretty generously.
Blue sky, white clouds, and patches of sunshine seemed to indicate that the stormy weather had gone for a while. It had been summer warmth in Bethesda, where I had stocked up for two nights including a couple of faggots (or "faddocks" as they call them in Wales) for suppers and also bought some extras for the snack lunch I ate beside the Llafar stream. Filling my flask from the stream, I had wondered whether to fill the billy as well but had decided against carrying the extra water; after all, I could always stroll along the ridge to the Llywelyn spring, three-quarters of an hour from the top of Dafydd, to fetch water. As it turned out, I did not have to stroll a quarter of that distance.
The summit of Carnedd Dafydd, reached at four o'clock by way of the long but not difficult north-west ridge, is marked by an enormous cairn, said to be the remains of a primitive fort. All around it the ground is hard and stony, and I had to stretch my biscuit-toss to fifty feet to find a comfortable site for my tent south-east of the cairn. When the tent was up and my belongings in order I went for the usual saunter to examine the immediate surroundings of my night's lodgings and – to my delight – came upon a very good spring of water. It was south of my tent-site and it took me five minutes exactly to walk up from it to the tent. Once again the mountain-top had solved my problem, and I celebrated the find with a teatime brew of coffee. My tent was indeed "a room with a view" that evening. Towards sunset the peaks to southward in the neighbourhood of Snowdon took on a startling clarity of outline though their other details were lost in blanks of deep blue or purple, and on the dark bar of the sea horizon was a distant but clear serration – the Wicklow Mountains in Ireland.
The site of the next summit-camp, Pen yr Oleu Wen, was only a mile and a half away, and I spent the following morning – clear and dry but cloudy – moving camp there. This 3,211-foot top is a broad tableland and the cairn is in the middle of it, so that although the mountain overlooks a spectacular view down to Ogwen lake 2,000 feet below you do not see it until you go downhill south-west to a smaller cairn on the rim of the tableland. This second cairn marks the start of the very steep descent-path which I was to use early next day. Talking of cairns, there are two enormous piles of stones on the ridge as you go from Dafydd to Pen yr Oleu Wen, both supposed to be ruins of ancient fortifications. If the supposition is true this must have been the highest fortress in Britain.
The late afternoon gave me a chance to visit Ffynnon Lloer, the lake in the deep hollow between Carnedd Dafydd and Pen yr Oleu Wen. Its name has been translated "Pool of the Moon". I reached it by descending the interesting ridge east of the camp-site and made a leisurely circle round its steep shores, climbing up again to northward past the remains of a crashed aircraft and regaining the crest not far from the top of Carnedd Dafydd. Had I known I was coming back this way I would have brought the flask and billy with me to fill at Dafydd's spring, for there is no water on Pen yr Oleu Wen. As it was, I had an early-evening walk to Dafydd and back to fetch water for supper and breakfast. At twilight it was so still and warm on the summit that I cooked and ate supper outside, looking across the invisible Ogwen depths to the mountains beyond it, Tryfan and the Glyders and Y Garn – spikier tops than these comfortable Carnedd summits and seemingly less likely to provide sites for my tent.
The east ridge by which I had descended to Ffynnon Lloer is easier for the backpacker, I think, than the uncomfortable path down the south ridge to Ogwen. But it takes considerably longer and brings you down to the east end of Ogwen instead of the western end where the Youth Hostel is. I went down the south ridge because I wanted to catch a bus at Ogwen. This infrequent bus service only runs during the school term so in the usual summer holidays it is useless to the backpacker; but in late September the bus passes Ogwen at 9.50 a.m. and gets you down the long hard A5 to Bethesda in ten minutes, and there is a bus back again that leaves Bethesda at 2.15 p.m. (In these changing times it would be wise to check this in advance.) Failing a bus, there is a lot of car traffic on A5 in summer and a hitch is a likely substitute.
My plan now was to stock up at Bethesda again, but this time for five days. There are five 3,000-foot summits from Tryfan to Elidyr Fawr and I did not want to go all the way down to Bethesda a third time. To avoid this, I proposed to make a cache of the two days' supplies for Y Garn and Elidyr and pick them up after camping on Tryfan and the two Glyder summits, using the plastic sack I had brought with me (dustbin liner, weight two ounces, takes up virtually no space) to contain the food in the cache. How this was done is detailed in section C. Incidentally, points to note in this business of stocking-up are early-closing days and Sundays; if you start the fourteen days from Aber on a Saturday, as I did, there will be no need to stock up on a Sunday – and you can dodge early-closing by getting down to the valley town before noon.
Dense mist covered Pen yr Oleu wen early next morning (it was Friday) as I scrambled down that very steep path to Ogwen, having breakfasted and packed up early and left the summit at five to eight. During the half hour I waited for the bus to come the clouds broke and shredded away, and as I sped in lordly ease down the Nant Ffrancon in the bus bright sunshine lit the crags and cams above the road.
Blue sky, white clouds, and patches of sunshine seemed to indicate that the stormy weather had gone for a while. It had been summer warmth in Bethesda, where I had stocked up for two nights including a couple of faggots (or "faddocks" as they call them in Wales) for suppers and also bought some extras for the snack lunch I ate beside the Llafar stream. Filling my flask from the stream, I had wondered whether to fill the billy as well but had decided against carrying the extra water; after all, I could always stroll along the ridge to the Llywelyn spring, three-quarters of an hour from the top of Dafydd, to fetch water. As it turned out, I did not have to stroll a quarter of that distance.
The summit of Carnedd Dafydd, reached at four o'clock by way of the long but not difficult north-west ridge, is marked by an enormous cairn, said to be the remains of a primitive fort. All around it the ground is hard and stony, and I had to stretch my biscuit-toss to fifty feet to find a comfortable site for my tent south-east of the cairn. When the tent was up and my belongings in order I went for the usual saunter to examine the immediate surroundings of my night's lodgings and – to my delight – came upon a very good spring of water. It was south of my tent-site and it took me five minutes exactly to walk up from it to the tent. Once again the mountain-top had solved my problem, and I celebrated the find with a teatime brew of coffee. My tent was indeed "a room with a view" that evening. Towards sunset the peaks to southward in the neighbourhood of Snowdon took on a startling clarity of outline though their other details were lost in blanks of deep blue or purple, and on the dark bar of the sea horizon was a distant but clear serration – the Wicklow Mountains in Ireland.
The site of the next summit-camp, Pen yr Oleu Wen, was only a mile and a half away, and I spent the following morning – clear and dry but cloudy – moving camp there. This 3,211-foot top is a broad tableland and the cairn is in the middle of it, so that although the mountain overlooks a spectacular view down to Ogwen lake 2,000 feet below you do not see it until you go downhill south-west to a smaller cairn on the rim of the tableland. This second cairn marks the start of the very steep descent-path which I was to use early next day. Talking of cairns, there are two enormous piles of stones on the ridge as you go from Dafydd to Pen yr Oleu Wen, both supposed to be ruins of ancient fortifications. If the supposition is true this must have been the highest fortress in Britain.
The late afternoon gave me a chance to visit Ffynnon Lloer, the lake in the deep hollow between Carnedd Dafydd and Pen yr Oleu Wen. Its name has been translated "Pool of the Moon". I reached it by descending the interesting ridge east of the camp-site and made a leisurely circle round its steep shores, climbing up again to northward past the remains of a crashed aircraft and regaining the crest not far from the top of Carnedd Dafydd. Had I known I was coming back this way I would have brought the flask and billy with me to fill at Dafydd's spring, for there is no water on Pen yr Oleu Wen. As it was, I had an early-evening walk to Dafydd and back to fetch water for supper and breakfast. At twilight it was so still and warm on the summit that I cooked and ate supper outside, looking across the invisible Ogwen depths to the mountains beyond it, Tryfan and the Glyders and Y Garn – spikier tops than these comfortable Carnedd summits and seemingly less likely to provide sites for my tent.
The east ridge by which I had descended to Ffynnon Lloer is easier for the backpacker, I think, than the uncomfortable path down the south ridge to Ogwen. But it takes considerably longer and brings you down to the east end of Ogwen instead of the western end where the Youth Hostel is. I went down the south ridge because I wanted to catch a bus at Ogwen. This infrequent bus service only runs during the school term so in the usual summer holidays it is useless to the backpacker; but in late September the bus passes Ogwen at 9.50 a.m. and gets you down the long hard A5 to Bethesda in ten minutes, and there is a bus back again that leaves Bethesda at 2.15 p.m. (In these changing times it would be wise to check this in advance.) Failing a bus, there is a lot of car traffic on A5 in summer and a hitch is a likely substitute.
My plan now was to stock up at Bethesda again, but this time for five days. There are five 3,000-foot summits from Tryfan to Elidyr Fawr and I did not want to go all the way down to Bethesda a third time. To avoid this, I proposed to make a cache of the two days' supplies for Y Garn and Elidyr and pick them up after camping on Tryfan and the two Glyder summits, using the plastic sack I had brought with me (dustbin liner, weight two ounces, takes up virtually no space) to contain the food in the cache. How this was done is detailed in section C. Incidentally, points to note in this business of stocking-up are early-closing days and Sundays; if you start the fourteen days from Aber on a Saturday, as I did, there will be no need to stock up on a Sunday – and you can dodge early-closing by getting down to the valley town before noon.
Dense mist covered Pen yr Oleu wen early next morning (it was Friday) as I scrambled down that very steep path to Ogwen, having breakfasted and packed up early and left the summit at five to eight. During the half hour I waited for the bus to come the clouds broke and shredded away, and as I sped in lordly ease down the Nant Ffrancon in the bus bright sunshine lit the crags and cams above the road.
C. The Glyderau
At Bethesda stock-up for 3 camps (food in pack) and 2 further camps (food in separate package.) 2.15 bus, or hitch, back to Pen-y-Benglog, W end of Llyn Ogwen. Take Public Footpath from beside City of Birmingham Outdoor Pursuits Centre to Idwal, .5 m. Leave 2-day package in secure cache near N end of lake (e.g. among rocks above E shore) and follow path ENE, then ESE to Llyn Bochlwyd, .75 m. Continue up well-marked path SE from lake for .25 m then branch L up steeper path mounting ENE then N up South Ridge of Tryfan, with some easy scrambling, to summit, 3,010 ft, ,5 m. CAMP. Descend South Ridge by a higher rocky path that keeps on W side of ridge just below crest, to Bwlch Tryfan, .5 m. Bristly Ridge rises ahead but is awkward with a pack; go up the scree path on its left, steep, with crags of Bristly above on R. At top join cairned path WSW to summit of Glyder Fach, 3,262 ft, .75 m. CAMP. From summit a path crosses rocky plateau WSW descending L (S) of Castell-y-Gwynt pinnacles to Bwlch y Ddwy Glyder, .5 m, and on W to summit of Glyder Fawr, 3,279 ft, .75 m. CAMP. The descent path, cairned, goes down a little W of NW via 800 ft of steep scree to Bwlch Blaen Cwm Idwal at top of Devil's Kitchen to Llyn Idwal and pick up package from cache at N end of lake, 1.5 m … 3 summit camps, about 8 miles.
At Ogwen I got off the bus into hot sunshine and shouldered the pack. It felt unduly heavy, for the four hours between buses in Bethesda had tempted me to shop around, with weighty consequences in the shape of a tin of baked beans and a hunk of fruit cake added to the two-day package strapped on top of the pack. However, the extra package would not have to be carried for no more than twenty minutes. Though the official holiday season was past there were plenty of people about in the always popular neighbourhood of Llyn Idwal, making the most of the glorious afternoon, and I got well out of sight among the rocks above Idwal's east shore to hide my package. Much the best way of doing this is to find a place where the package can be totally concealed, then find and note down the bearing and distance of the hiding-place from the nearest unmistakable landmark; if you merely trust to memory and the look of the place the odds are that you will not find it again. From my cache I could look up the lake to the deep cleft of the Devil's Kitchen, gloomy even on this bright afternoon, and see the route by which I would descend in three days' time to pick up the stores.
This job done, I set off up the path eastward, away from Cwm Idwal and up beside the waterfalls to Llyn Bochlwyd. On the steeper path above the lake I met half a dozen people coming down from Tryfan; and looking down to Llyn Bochlwyd's secluded southern shore I could see a small orange tent. It was after five when I clambered up the last rocky bit to the little rocky plateau on top of Tryfan. There were three or four people on the summit (besides Adam and Eve, the two monolithic rocks that are Tryfan's substitute for a cairn) and since I did not want an audience while I pitched the tentI withdrew unobtrusively round a corner of South Peak to wait - and to fill the flask and billy from the spring.
Fifteen years before, on a day when all the mountainsides were brown after a month's drought, I had discovered this spring, icy-cold and delicious. It is just three minutes from the top of Tryfan. You take the highest of the rocky paths descending round the flank of South Peak, and when you see some black peaty oozings at the foot of a six-foot slab on the left clamber up the slab and drop into the cave behind it. There is the spring. Its little pool is shallow and you need a mug or something to scoop up the water. I took some time over getting the water and afterwards spent half an hour collecting dry heather-sticks from under the bushes of heather on the steep ledges. When I returned to the summit it was six o'clock and there was no one about.
Tryfan is a rock peak and its top is very different from those of the grassy, shaly Carneddau. The small plateau behind Adam and Eve is entirely covered with huge rocks. A rapid inspection disclosed that there was only one possible pitch for my little tent, where a space of flat earth about two feet wide by six feet long occurred between two more or less flat slabs. It proved to be sufficiently comfortable; and this time, at least, I was within very easy biscuit-toss of the highest point. Supper was cooked on a little fire of heather-twigs just after sunset and after it I hoisted myself on top of Adam (or Eve) to watch the coming of night. It was cold up there but almost windless, the stars appearing bit by bit in a clear sky. All the sheer crags of the east face were jet-black until a half-moon sailed up above the eastern horizon to touch their jagged edges first with gold then with silver.
Morning was clear and very cold, but at 6.45 Tryfan summit was catching the first rays of the sun and warming up. Peering over the edge on the west, I could see the orange dot of the tent by Llyn Bochlwyd 1,200 feet below; it was in chill blue shadow, and when I had struck camp and was on the way down the South Ridge at ten the sun was just reaching it. One or two Saturday-morning walkers were approaching Bwlch Tryfan when I got down to it, but in the head of Cwm Tryfan, where I had lunch and spent the afternoon exploring the many small waterfalls, there was no one to be seen. Regaining Bwlch Tryfan at four, I faced the steep and tiring climb up the long slope of scree below the Bristly Ridge crags; the staff was a help here. Several rests and a long one for a smoke at the top of the scree accounted for my not reaching the top of Glyder Fach until a quarter to six. Like Tryfan, this mountain has no summit-cairn. The highest point is a massive rock resting horizontally on an immense pile of similar rocks forty or fifty feet high, and it takes a hand-and-foot scramble to reach it. A pair of walkers were leaving the summit as I arrived and I lost no time in looking for a tent-site. Glyder Fach is by no means an ideal camping summit, being famous as the roughest summit in Britain, so I was relieved when a twenty-minute search located a broad shelf of grass some way below the summit facing west. A light biscuit (a cream-cracker, say) might have reached it if tossed from the summit on a strong east wind; but with seven mountain-top camps behind me I was now inclined to put soft lying before the original biscuit-toss idea. There had been springs on four of those seven tops. When camp was made I used the last of the daylight to go looking for one on Glyder Fach, though without much hope. Just after sunset I found one, a fifteen-minute walk from the summit. You go along the well-marked path west-south-west and to the left of the pinnacles of Castell-y-Gwynt, and when you come in sight of the grassy col of Bwlch y Ddwy Glyder turn left and scramble down steepish rocks for fifty feet to where the small spring trickles out among green mosses.
The tent was well sheltered from every side except the south-west, and it was from that quarter that a strong wind came gusting in the night, making a lot of noise in the wall of crags above. When I looked out at seven next morning there was nothing to see but whirling grey mist. I had a lie-in – it was Sunday, after all – and packed up after a late breakfast for the leisurely traverse to Glyder Fawr, a mere half-hour's walk which I broke halfway to go down the slopes south of Bwlch y Ddwy Glyder for lunch and the collection of heather fuel. Be it noted that I did not break or uproot growing heather; under the tall old bushes there are always dead or discarded twigs and these are the best of fuel for a quick boil of the billy.
Morning was clear and very cold, but at 6.45 Tryfan summit was catching the first rays of the sun and warming up. Peering over the edge on the west, I could see the orange dot of the tent by Llyn Bochlwyd 1,200 feet below; it was in chill blue shadow, and when I had struck camp and was on the way down the South Ridge at ten the sun was just reaching it. One or two Saturday-morning walkers were approaching Bwlch Tryfan when I got down to it, but in the head of Cwm Tryfan, where I had lunch and spent the afternoon exploring the many small waterfalls, there was no one to be seen. Regaining Bwlch Tryfan at four, I faced the steep and tiring climb up the long slope of scree below the Bristly Ridge crags; the staff was a help here. Several rests and a long one for a smoke at the top of the scree accounted for my not reaching the top of Glyder Fach until a quarter to six. Like Tryfan, this mountain has no summit-cairn. The highest point is a massive rock resting horizontally on an immense pile of similar rocks forty or fifty feet high, and it takes a hand-and-foot scramble to reach it. A pair of walkers were leaving the summit as I arrived and I lost no time in looking for a tent-site. Glyder Fach is by no means an ideal camping summit, being famous as the roughest summit in Britain, so I was relieved when a twenty-minute search located a broad shelf of grass some way below the summit facing west. A light biscuit (a cream-cracker, say) might have reached it if tossed from the summit on a strong east wind; but with seven mountain-top camps behind me I was now inclined to put soft lying before the original biscuit-toss idea. There had been springs on four of those seven tops. When camp was made I used the last of the daylight to go looking for one on Glyder Fach, though without much hope. Just after sunset I found one, a fifteen-minute walk from the summit. You go along the well-marked path west-south-west and to the left of the pinnacles of Castell-y-Gwynt, and when you come in sight of the grassy col of Bwlch y Ddwy Glyder turn left and scramble down steepish rocks for fifty feet to where the small spring trickles out among green mosses.
The tent was well sheltered from every side except the south-west, and it was from that quarter that a strong wind came gusting in the night, making a lot of noise in the wall of crags above. When I looked out at seven next morning there was nothing to see but whirling grey mist. I had a lie-in – it was Sunday, after all – and packed up after a late breakfast for the leisurely traverse to Glyder Fawr, a mere half-hour's walk which I broke halfway to go down the slopes south of Bwlch y Ddwy Glyder for lunch and the collection of heather fuel. Be it noted that I did not break or uproot growing heather; under the tall old bushes there are always dead or discarded twigs and these are the best of fuel for a quick boil of the billy.
Glyder Fawr has a very odd top, a gentle dome covered with shattered rocks from which several stooks of spiky pinnacles pop up. The highest of these stooks is the summit. Near it the ground is pretty hopeless for camping in any sort of comfort, but fifty feet down on the south-west a grassy terrace gives an excellent site, with a superb view of Snowdon; I must confess that this site could not be reached from the summit by the strongest of biscuit-tossers, but it was too good to miss and had a fine spring, marked by a cairn of white quartz, within a stone's -throw of the tent. This was the last time I was to find water near my mountain camp-sites.
The morning's mist had cleared before noon and the rest of the day had been dry but clouded. With twilight the mist came down again and a thin rain rustled the tent fabric as I lay snug in my sleeping-bag. Waking several times in the night, I was vaguely conscious of a strong wind blowing and, later, of absolute stillness. At seven, when I poked my head out of the tent, I saw the peaks of the Snowdon Horseshoe crystal-clear under a cloudless sky, with the first level rays of the sun throwing the Parson's Nose and the north ridge of Crib Goch into bold relief. Once again I breakfasted in warm sunshine at an hour when valley-campers were cold in their still-shadowed tents, and was ready to maintain that mountain-tops are far and away the best places for camping. Carnedd Ugain was waiting four nights ahead to disillusion me.
On such a perfect day it seemed a pity to leave the high crests, but I had now to descend to Llyn Idwal 2,000 feet below to recover my supplies for the next two camps. The long scree down to Bwlch Blaen Cwm Idwal was as uncomfortable as ever (and would have been more so if I had not had a staff) but from its foot I went on less heavily burdened. Since the morning showed no sign of changing to rain I found a safe spot and hid there the tent, the stove, and a few other weighty items, leaving a very light pack to be carried down past the foot of the Devil's Kitchen to Llyn Idwal.
It is really no chore, descending and re-ascending by this fine route, and this morning it was looking at its best. The great cleft of the Devil's Kitchen, which you would miss altogether by keeping on the crests, is a sight worth seeing. You can clamber into the bottom of it from the earthy shelf halfway down the path but only for a short distance – the complete ascent is for skilled rock-climbers only. The path though very steep is nowhere difficult or dangerous. Below the Kitchen it threads a scramble way down towards the lake through a chaos of great rocks, and if you bear away to the left as you near Llyn Idwal you pick up a path that runs along the west shore of the lake and round its northern end, so adding variety to the day's walk.
I did this circumambulation of the lake, meeting two parties of students on the way. Cwm Idwal is a National Nature Reserve and many folk come here to study its ecology and especially its geology and glaciology; the path round the west shore crosses the old moraine humps of an ancient glacier. My cache was intact. I stowed the two-day package in my pack, and having lunched among the rocks by a stream started back again towards the Devil's Kitchen, this time by the path along Idwal's east shore.
The morning's mist had cleared before noon and the rest of the day had been dry but clouded. With twilight the mist came down again and a thin rain rustled the tent fabric as I lay snug in my sleeping-bag. Waking several times in the night, I was vaguely conscious of a strong wind blowing and, later, of absolute stillness. At seven, when I poked my head out of the tent, I saw the peaks of the Snowdon Horseshoe crystal-clear under a cloudless sky, with the first level rays of the sun throwing the Parson's Nose and the north ridge of Crib Goch into bold relief. Once again I breakfasted in warm sunshine at an hour when valley-campers were cold in their still-shadowed tents, and was ready to maintain that mountain-tops are far and away the best places for camping. Carnedd Ugain was waiting four nights ahead to disillusion me.
On such a perfect day it seemed a pity to leave the high crests, but I had now to descend to Llyn Idwal 2,000 feet below to recover my supplies for the next two camps. The long scree down to Bwlch Blaen Cwm Idwal was as uncomfortable as ever (and would have been more so if I had not had a staff) but from its foot I went on less heavily burdened. Since the morning showed no sign of changing to rain I found a safe spot and hid there the tent, the stove, and a few other weighty items, leaving a very light pack to be carried down past the foot of the Devil's Kitchen to Llyn Idwal.
It is really no chore, descending and re-ascending by this fine route, and this morning it was looking at its best. The great cleft of the Devil's Kitchen, which you would miss altogether by keeping on the crests, is a sight worth seeing. You can clamber into the bottom of it from the earthy shelf halfway down the path but only for a short distance – the complete ascent is for skilled rock-climbers only. The path though very steep is nowhere difficult or dangerous. Below the Kitchen it threads a scramble way down towards the lake through a chaos of great rocks, and if you bear away to the left as you near Llyn Idwal you pick up a path that runs along the west shore of the lake and round its northern end, so adding variety to the day's walk.
I did this circumambulation of the lake, meeting two parties of students on the way. Cwm Idwal is a National Nature Reserve and many folk come here to study its ecology and especially its geology and glaciology; the path round the west shore crosses the old moraine humps of an ancient glacier. My cache was intact. I stowed the two-day package in my pack, and having lunched among the rocks by a stream started back again towards the Devil's Kitchen, this time by the path along Idwal's east shore.
D. Y Garn and Elidyr Fawr
Return from the N end of Llyn Idwal by path along lake and up past Devil's Kitchen to Bwlch Blaen Cwm Idwal, 1.5 m. Take path W along N shore of Llyn y Cwn and there turn R up faint path N by W to summit of Y Garn, 3,104 ft, 1 m. CAMP. Descend NW then N on well-trodden path, either going over top of Foel Goch or contouring on W, to Bwlch y Brecan, 2 m. Path continues, curving W and WSW and up to summit of Elidyr Fawr, 3,030 ft, .75 m. CAMP. Descend SW along summit-ridge for about .3 m then go down scree and grass SSE, steep, into glen of Afon Dudodyn to follow track on L bank to A4086 at Nant Peris, 3 m. Walk or hitch on main road to Llanberis, 2 m … 2 summit camps, about 10.5 miles.
The scenery of the Devil's Kitchen was not, I admit, quite so delightful on the return journey with a pack containing two days supplies. I was glad I had left the tent on the Bwlch instead of carrying it down and up again. It was still in its hiding-place among the boulders, and with a fully laden pack I started on the ascent of Y Garn, which is a straight-upward slog of 700 feet from the shore of little Llyn y Cwn, a quarter mile south-west of the top of the Kitchen path.
The phenomenally clear weather of morning had been brought by an east wind, and when this happens in early autumn the afternoon usually becomes increasingly hazy. This was the case today. As I slowly neared the summit the sky overhead grew duller and greyer and the wind colder and stronger. Fortunately there was no more than a strong breeze when I reached the big pile of stones that marks the highest point, for the site I chose for the tent was an exposed one. East of Y Garn's summit-cairn the precipices fall sheer, and on the other three sides the ground slopes so steeply that it would be impossible to sleep in a tent pitched within 500 feet of the top. I solved this problem by camping on the cairn itself. The heap of loose stones had to be adjusted so that instead of coming to a point it offered a platform six feet by three. I spent an hour doing this and also building a rudimentary shelter-wall along the windward edge of the tent. The guys were well and truly secured to larger rocks. When the tent was up it raised the height of Y Garn from 3,104 to 3,106 feet.
This was not exactly a comfortable camp, but unexpectedly I slept soundly, the wind having moderated or at least not got any stronger. There was of course no water up here; I had filled flask and billy at the little stream issuing from Llyn y Cwn and so had two pints for making coffee and porridge and boiling an egg. Cooking had to be done, uncomfortably, on the Tommy cooker inside the tent, a procedure positively inviting the upsetting of utensils; but it is surprising how deft and careful one becomes when the water for replacing an upset billy-full has to be fetched from 700 feet down the mountain.
"Leaving this site exactly as you found it" is the good camper's motto. Next morning, a dull cold day with the tops just below the cloud-ceiling, I built up Y Garn's cairn again before leaving the summit. It was a fine ridge-walk round to Elidyr Fawr, with the green Nant Ffrancon far down on the right hand and the Vale of Llanberis on the left. Most of the way there is a plain path made by walkers. Foel Goch, 2,727 feet, intervenes between Y Garn and Bwlch y Brecan, the col where the projecting ridge of Elidyr juts westward from the main north-south crest; I found a path contouring fairly level found the west flank of Foel Goch and used this to save extra up-and-down. Just after the path turns west on Bwlch y Brecan it arrives on a narrow col whence you look down on the almost perfect circle of Marchlyn Mawr lake to northward. Here I got down into a snug shelter and had lunch, lingering over pipe and map for some time before starting up the narrow path that climbs the ridge to Elidyr. Here I met the first folk I had seen that day, a man and a girl coming down the ridge. There was no one on the top, where I arrived at three, and I set about finding a site for the tent.
The summit of Elidyr Fawr is quite narrow and its crest is rocky, with steep scree down on the right and small rock-walls below on the left. About twenty yards south-west of the cairn and twenty feet below it I found a charming site. It was a roomy ledge immediately under a five-foot vertical wall of rock, floored with turf, sheltered on three sides. The open side faced south-east, but since the wind had veered during the day and was now blowing gently from the south-west this was no bad thing. It took me half an hour to pitch the tent there, for there was no depth of soil for the pegs and the guys had to be anchored to heavy rocks carried up for the purpose. But when camp was established there was still three hours before sunset and water and fuel could be sought and collected at leisure.
As I had expected, there was no water near the top of Elidyr. The nearest was a hundred feet or more below Bwlch yn Brecan, where the Afon Dudodyn begins its short life about 800 feet down from my camp-site. I could have halted on the way up and filled the flask and billy from the stream; but two pints of water weigh two and a half pounds, and a pint of it had to be carried in the billy suspended from one hand, so I had decided to make water-fetching a separate expedition. This was one reason why I had established camp earlier than usual. Besides, I found it enjoyable to stroll unburdened by the pack, with my home-from-home safely in position up above.
It was a longish stroll down to the Afon Dudodyn, but the clearing skies of late afternoon made the views better than they had been all day. The peaks of Snowdon were all free from cloud and pale patches of sunshine moved slowly across the dark ridges. There were the last three summits of the journey – Y Wyddfa (Snowdon summit), Carnedd Ugain, and Crib Goch. I had been over them many a time, though never with an eye for possible camp-sites on the tops; but I was very sure that Crib Goch would prove to be the toughest camping-place of the lot and might even force me to sit out the night with the tent wrapped round me.
I had taken the empty pack down with me and returned not only with water but also with a small supply of dry twigs of bilberry and heather. A niche in the little rock-wall a few feet from the tent made a perfect fireplace, and there I lit my fire and heated up baked beans in the frypan lid of the billy. My fire, by the way, was always very small and I never indulged in a blaze after dusk, remembering too well a New Year's Eve when I had been called out on a rescue party because of a light seen on a shoulder of Snowdon just before midnight; it turned out to be someone seeing the New Year in up there. After this supper of unusual luxury I got into my sleeping-bag early, for there was a long hard day before me tomorrow. I had to descend nearly 3,000 feet to Llanberis, stock up for three days, and ascend more than 3,000 feet to Snowdon. Which of the three peaks was to be camped on first would be decided by the weather; it just had to be a fine night for Crib Goch.
Next morning I was eating my breakfast egg when the sun came up over the shoulder of Y Garn. By eight I was away down the long slopes of unyielding steepness east of the angular slate-mounds of the Llanberis quarries, in high spirits because the weather looked like being perfect for a camp on Crib Goch that night. Two hours later I was plodding along the main road towards Llanberis two miles away; but a bit of well-timed 'thumbing' won a lift from a Welshman in a small van and I was stocking up in Llanberis at 10.30.
The summit of Elidyr Fawr is quite narrow and its crest is rocky, with steep scree down on the right and small rock-walls below on the left. About twenty yards south-west of the cairn and twenty feet below it I found a charming site. It was a roomy ledge immediately under a five-foot vertical wall of rock, floored with turf, sheltered on three sides. The open side faced south-east, but since the wind had veered during the day and was now blowing gently from the south-west this was no bad thing. It took me half an hour to pitch the tent there, for there was no depth of soil for the pegs and the guys had to be anchored to heavy rocks carried up for the purpose. But when camp was established there was still three hours before sunset and water and fuel could be sought and collected at leisure.
As I had expected, there was no water near the top of Elidyr. The nearest was a hundred feet or more below Bwlch yn Brecan, where the Afon Dudodyn begins its short life about 800 feet down from my camp-site. I could have halted on the way up and filled the flask and billy from the stream; but two pints of water weigh two and a half pounds, and a pint of it had to be carried in the billy suspended from one hand, so I had decided to make water-fetching a separate expedition. This was one reason why I had established camp earlier than usual. Besides, I found it enjoyable to stroll unburdened by the pack, with my home-from-home safely in position up above.
It was a longish stroll down to the Afon Dudodyn, but the clearing skies of late afternoon made the views better than they had been all day. The peaks of Snowdon were all free from cloud and pale patches of sunshine moved slowly across the dark ridges. There were the last three summits of the journey – Y Wyddfa (Snowdon summit), Carnedd Ugain, and Crib Goch. I had been over them many a time, though never with an eye for possible camp-sites on the tops; but I was very sure that Crib Goch would prove to be the toughest camping-place of the lot and might even force me to sit out the night with the tent wrapped round me.
I had taken the empty pack down with me and returned not only with water but also with a small supply of dry twigs of bilberry and heather. A niche in the little rock-wall a few feet from the tent made a perfect fireplace, and there I lit my fire and heated up baked beans in the frypan lid of the billy. My fire, by the way, was always very small and I never indulged in a blaze after dusk, remembering too well a New Year's Eve when I had been called out on a rescue party because of a light seen on a shoulder of Snowdon just before midnight; it turned out to be someone seeing the New Year in up there. After this supper of unusual luxury I got into my sleeping-bag early, for there was a long hard day before me tomorrow. I had to descend nearly 3,000 feet to Llanberis, stock up for three days, and ascend more than 3,000 feet to Snowdon. Which of the three peaks was to be camped on first would be decided by the weather; it just had to be a fine night for Crib Goch.
Next morning I was eating my breakfast egg when the sun came up over the shoulder of Y Garn. By eight I was away down the long slopes of unyielding steepness east of the angular slate-mounds of the Llanberis quarries, in high spirits because the weather looked like being perfect for a camp on Crib Goch that night. Two hours later I was plodding along the main road towards Llanberis two miles away; but a bit of well-timed 'thumbing' won a lift from a Welshman in a small van and I was stocking up in Llanberis at 10.30.
E. THe Snowdon Peaks
From Snowdon Railway station at Llanberis go up the sign-posted Snowdon road, which becomes a steep lane and then a track, to Bwlch Glas, 4 m. Turn up NE on cairned path crossing Carnedd Ugain (Crib-y-Ddysgl) and E down crest to Bwlch Goch, up again bypassing the Pinnacles on S flank and along "knife-edge" to terminal summit of Crib Goch, 3,023 ft, 1.25 m. CAMP. Return W along crest to Carnedd Ugain, 3,496 ft, 1m. CAMP. Continue to Bwlch Glas and turn S up path by railway track to Snowdon summit (Y Wyddfa), 3,560 ft, 1 m. CAMP. For descent to Rhyd-Ddu, go SW across Bwlch Main and then W and SW down well-marked path to village of Rhyd-ddu, 3.5 m … 3 summit camps, about 11 miles.
There are two points to be noted about the itinerary for this section. First and more important, it is really essential to have a dry calm night for camping on the summit of Crib Goch; the three Snowdon summits can of course be camped on in any order so you have three chances of choosing the right weather for Crib. Second, the itinerary gives a descent by the Rhyd-ddu path because this was convenient to my own plans, but anyone making for the main railway line would go down again to Llanberis.
The day I stocked up in Llanberis was Wednesday, which is early-closing day there, but I had done my shopping and was moving out by eleven. During the summer holidays most of the shops do not close. The Llanberis path up Snowdon starts just round the corner from the Snowdon railway station, a road flanked by houses at first and then, beyond a cattle-grid, a steep winding lane until you go through a gate onto a broad track climbing gently up long open hill-slopes. It is the easiest way up Snowdon for the backpacker and the least exciting route. Fit though I was after ten days on the hills, I found it tiring and took rests at frequent intervals, for the pack contained a full three-day supply and the day was windless and hot – phenomenally hot, indeed, for the end of September. There was every sign that it would stay fine for a night on Crib Goch but it was likely that the unusual heat meant unsettled weather in the near future. There were a few people dotted about on the path ahead, and every half-hour the little trains of the Snowdon Railway (they run until the end of October) puffed past on the cog-back line, which runs fairly near the path for most of the way. With half an hour for lunch and a smoke, it took me well over three hours to reach Bwlch Glas at a quarter to three.
On this almost level col at 3,258 feet the railway line comes within a few feet of the path. Snowdon summit is right ahead and twenty minutes away, and from the col you can look down eastward onto Glaslyn and Llyn Llydaw. Near the north end of the col a cairn marks the start of a small but obvious path up the shaly slope to eastward, the beginning of the narrow rocky ridge over Carnedd Ugain and Crib-y-Ddysgl to Crib Goch. This path I took, passing the O.S. cairn on Carnedd Ugain after fifteen minutes and going on along the descending crest. In a secure place just off the path I left my staff. From now on I would be using both hands in several places.
I had traversed this fine ridge many times in the past (at least fifty) in all kinds of weather; though it is an airy scramble at intervals and needs care I had never found it hard except in snow conditions. With a heavy pack on my back balance was not so easy. An awkward clamber over a crag on the Crib-y-Ddysgl descent decided me to avoid the direct route over the Crib Goch Pinnacles – much the pleasanter way – in favour of the traverse that goes round them on the south flank. I was glad that the rocks were bone-dry and the afternoon windless; more so on the famous 'knife-edge' that leads to the end of the ridge and the summit of Crib Goch. There is no avoiding this narrow comb of rock and if you try to traverse it on the south you get into bad trouble, but in fact the knife-edge is the simplest of scrambling with big footholds and perfect handhold on the edge. I took it at a leisurely speed and stood on the tiny summit at half-past four.
That I took one and three-quarter hours over this short distance was chiefly due to a halt on Bwlch Goch, just short of the Pinnacles, to get water from a spring I knew of. There is a way down from Bwlch Goch on the north side, and if you go about 100 feet down the shallow gully of scree the spring will be found a few feet to the left – west – of the gully.
Crib Goch summit is a pyramid of rock with no room for a cairn. In the side of the pyramid overlooking the north ridge is a horizontal ledge four feet long. With loose stones wrested from the nearby crags I managed to extend this another eighteen inches or so, and got the tent erected on it with rock anchors for guys. A biscuit tossed from this summit would land a thousand feet below. It was a grand place to be on that fine evening, and I think the half-dozen surprised climbers who found me established there for the night were envious. No one came inching along the knife-edge after sunset and I supped and slept in splendid isolation on my lofty pinnacle above Llanberis Pass.
Morning was still and warm but the sky was clouding over as I breakfasted at seven – porridge and boiled egg as usual, with special care not to drop the egg-spoon down the precipice. I packed up and got back across the knife-edge, more confidently this time, and settled down on Bwlch Goch for a long halt which included bringing up more water from the spring below and lunching at noon. By this time the clouds were lower and a wind had sprung up. A wet mist was driving over Crib-y-Ddysgl as I clambered up its bony crest with only one brief pause to pick up my faithful staff. I was anxious to pitch the tent on Carnedd Ugain summit before the weather grew worse. This top is whaleback shape, with the north and south flanks dropping in sheer crags, and its O.S. cairn at 3,496 feet stands on the second highest summit in England and Wales – though Carnedd Llywelyn claims its place as the second highest separate mountain. As might be expected, the wind was blowing gale force on top. A thin spray of rain was flailing out of the driving mist as I wrestled with the tent, which seemed to be doing its best to parachute me over the edge and down into Cwm Dyli. It was vital to anchor it extra firmly but the pegs would only go in a couple of inches; I had to leave it precariously erect while I ran hither and yon carrying rocks for anchors. At last I had finished and could crawl into shelter, and though the tent rocked and flapped in the gusts, and the rain drove against the fabric like volleys from a thousand peashooters, I was satisfactorily snug and dry.
This site was on perfectly level ground about fifteen feet north of the O.S. cairn, and in calm weather would be a comfortable place with splendid views. As it was, it was easily the most comfortless site of all. I had got inside the tent at half-past two and there I had to stay – with one brief sally at nightfall – for the next sixteen hours, writing in my Log, smoking, brewing coffee (a very tricky business) and trying to sleep. The gale reached its greatest fury in the night, and one of the guys at the foot of the tent snapped. I spent a fair amount of time supporting the tentpole to take some strain off the other guys. But with the grey light of dawn came a change in the wind, probably to the south where Snowdon summit made a lee for its neighbour, and I boiled water for coffee and egg – there was not enough for porridge – and had breakfast in comparative quiet. Afterwards I went back into the sleeping-bag to make up for lost sleep; and it was eleven when I bundled the wet tent on top of the pack and set off through the windy mist for my last peak.
The problem of the tent-site on Snowdon had given me something to think about during yesterday's long lie-in. As everyone knows, the top of the highest mountain in England and Wales is a messy, dreary place. A dingy railway station and a large hotel-restaurant occupy the only places where a tent might once have been pitched within a biscuit-toss of the big cairn; moreover, there were people living in the hotel. After so many delightfully remote camps on lower summits, Snowdon, paradoxically, was a come-down. I had resolved to give the biscuit-toss idea a complete miss and simply find a quiet site somewhere beyond the hotel. There were likely places, I seemed to remember, just off the start of the Rhyd-Ddu descent.
A train came up out of the mist as I was trudging the final bit of path to the top, and quite a swarm of passengers were shivering on the viewless cairn when I climbed to it. I joined them in the restaurant for a welcome but expensive cup of tea, and persuaded the waitress to fill my flask with water. The steamed-up windows brightened suddenly, then darkened. The mist was breaking, grudgingly letting the sunshine through, and an hour later the last grey shred of cloud had blown away. Under a blue sky patched with white clouds I sallied forth to look for a tent-site. As you go down the broad south ridge from the hotel the path curls down to the right, leaving the crest of the ridge on its left and above. On a grassy saddle of this crest, about 200 yards from the hotel and 100 feet below it, there was an excellent site a yard or two back from the rim of the crags that drop to Cwm Tregalan. It was not ideal, for it was in sight of the path, and of course there was no water; but it was sheltered from south and west by a miniature crag and had a magnificent view across the cam to the sharp peak of Lliwedd and the distant Berwyns on the eastern horizon.
That was a good camp, last of the fourteen. Every backpacker knows how welcome a good drying day can be after a soaking-wet night, and the intermittent sunshine of the afternoon was accompanied by a strong westerly wind. I rigged the fifty-foot line between two jutting rocks on the crag above the site and dried my damp sleeping-bag and wind proofs. Quite a number of people passed up and down the path a hundred yards away while I was doing this but no one mounted to my homestead. When dusk fell the weather looked like being much the same tomorrow; and so it turned out to be. A clear cold morning after nine hours of sound sleep saw me breakfasting outside the tent in sweater and windproofs – the last egg, the last porridge (a bumper helping) and nearly the last of the coffee having been prepared on the Tommy cooker with the last of the paraffin. At nine I set off down the path to Rhyd-Ddu, rather regretting that there were no more summit-camps ahead.
It had been a very rewarding fourteen days. The emphasis had been on the camping rather than the journeying; and though I have camped in a great many places, from Arctic Norway to the Himalaya, the Three-thousanders of North Wales gave me the most satisfying camping of all.
I had traversed this fine ridge many times in the past (at least fifty) in all kinds of weather; though it is an airy scramble at intervals and needs care I had never found it hard except in snow conditions. With a heavy pack on my back balance was not so easy. An awkward clamber over a crag on the Crib-y-Ddysgl descent decided me to avoid the direct route over the Crib Goch Pinnacles – much the pleasanter way – in favour of the traverse that goes round them on the south flank. I was glad that the rocks were bone-dry and the afternoon windless; more so on the famous 'knife-edge' that leads to the end of the ridge and the summit of Crib Goch. There is no avoiding this narrow comb of rock and if you try to traverse it on the south you get into bad trouble, but in fact the knife-edge is the simplest of scrambling with big footholds and perfect handhold on the edge. I took it at a leisurely speed and stood on the tiny summit at half-past four.
That I took one and three-quarter hours over this short distance was chiefly due to a halt on Bwlch Goch, just short of the Pinnacles, to get water from a spring I knew of. There is a way down from Bwlch Goch on the north side, and if you go about 100 feet down the shallow gully of scree the spring will be found a few feet to the left – west – of the gully.
Crib Goch summit is a pyramid of rock with no room for a cairn. In the side of the pyramid overlooking the north ridge is a horizontal ledge four feet long. With loose stones wrested from the nearby crags I managed to extend this another eighteen inches or so, and got the tent erected on it with rock anchors for guys. A biscuit tossed from this summit would land a thousand feet below. It was a grand place to be on that fine evening, and I think the half-dozen surprised climbers who found me established there for the night were envious. No one came inching along the knife-edge after sunset and I supped and slept in splendid isolation on my lofty pinnacle above Llanberis Pass.
Morning was still and warm but the sky was clouding over as I breakfasted at seven – porridge and boiled egg as usual, with special care not to drop the egg-spoon down the precipice. I packed up and got back across the knife-edge, more confidently this time, and settled down on Bwlch Goch for a long halt which included bringing up more water from the spring below and lunching at noon. By this time the clouds were lower and a wind had sprung up. A wet mist was driving over Crib-y-Ddysgl as I clambered up its bony crest with only one brief pause to pick up my faithful staff. I was anxious to pitch the tent on Carnedd Ugain summit before the weather grew worse. This top is whaleback shape, with the north and south flanks dropping in sheer crags, and its O.S. cairn at 3,496 feet stands on the second highest summit in England and Wales – though Carnedd Llywelyn claims its place as the second highest separate mountain. As might be expected, the wind was blowing gale force on top. A thin spray of rain was flailing out of the driving mist as I wrestled with the tent, which seemed to be doing its best to parachute me over the edge and down into Cwm Dyli. It was vital to anchor it extra firmly but the pegs would only go in a couple of inches; I had to leave it precariously erect while I ran hither and yon carrying rocks for anchors. At last I had finished and could crawl into shelter, and though the tent rocked and flapped in the gusts, and the rain drove against the fabric like volleys from a thousand peashooters, I was satisfactorily snug and dry.
This site was on perfectly level ground about fifteen feet north of the O.S. cairn, and in calm weather would be a comfortable place with splendid views. As it was, it was easily the most comfortless site of all. I had got inside the tent at half-past two and there I had to stay – with one brief sally at nightfall – for the next sixteen hours, writing in my Log, smoking, brewing coffee (a very tricky business) and trying to sleep. The gale reached its greatest fury in the night, and one of the guys at the foot of the tent snapped. I spent a fair amount of time supporting the tentpole to take some strain off the other guys. But with the grey light of dawn came a change in the wind, probably to the south where Snowdon summit made a lee for its neighbour, and I boiled water for coffee and egg – there was not enough for porridge – and had breakfast in comparative quiet. Afterwards I went back into the sleeping-bag to make up for lost sleep; and it was eleven when I bundled the wet tent on top of the pack and set off through the windy mist for my last peak.
The problem of the tent-site on Snowdon had given me something to think about during yesterday's long lie-in. As everyone knows, the top of the highest mountain in England and Wales is a messy, dreary place. A dingy railway station and a large hotel-restaurant occupy the only places where a tent might once have been pitched within a biscuit-toss of the big cairn; moreover, there were people living in the hotel. After so many delightfully remote camps on lower summits, Snowdon, paradoxically, was a come-down. I had resolved to give the biscuit-toss idea a complete miss and simply find a quiet site somewhere beyond the hotel. There were likely places, I seemed to remember, just off the start of the Rhyd-Ddu descent.
A train came up out of the mist as I was trudging the final bit of path to the top, and quite a swarm of passengers were shivering on the viewless cairn when I climbed to it. I joined them in the restaurant for a welcome but expensive cup of tea, and persuaded the waitress to fill my flask with water. The steamed-up windows brightened suddenly, then darkened. The mist was breaking, grudgingly letting the sunshine through, and an hour later the last grey shred of cloud had blown away. Under a blue sky patched with white clouds I sallied forth to look for a tent-site. As you go down the broad south ridge from the hotel the path curls down to the right, leaving the crest of the ridge on its left and above. On a grassy saddle of this crest, about 200 yards from the hotel and 100 feet below it, there was an excellent site a yard or two back from the rim of the crags that drop to Cwm Tregalan. It was not ideal, for it was in sight of the path, and of course there was no water; but it was sheltered from south and west by a miniature crag and had a magnificent view across the cam to the sharp peak of Lliwedd and the distant Berwyns on the eastern horizon.
That was a good camp, last of the fourteen. Every backpacker knows how welcome a good drying day can be after a soaking-wet night, and the intermittent sunshine of the afternoon was accompanied by a strong westerly wind. I rigged the fifty-foot line between two jutting rocks on the crag above the site and dried my damp sleeping-bag and wind proofs. Quite a number of people passed up and down the path a hundred yards away while I was doing this but no one mounted to my homestead. When dusk fell the weather looked like being much the same tomorrow; and so it turned out to be. A clear cold morning after nine hours of sound sleep saw me breakfasting outside the tent in sweater and windproofs – the last egg, the last porridge (a bumper helping) and nearly the last of the coffee having been prepared on the Tommy cooker with the last of the paraffin. At nine I set off down the path to Rhyd-Ddu, rather regretting that there were no more summit-camps ahead.
It had been a very rewarding fourteen days. The emphasis had been on the camping rather than the journeying; and though I have camped in a great many places, from Arctic Norway to the Himalaya, the Three-thousanders of North Wales gave me the most satisfying camping of all.
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