Great Mountain Days in Snowdonia. Terry Marsh
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Название: Great Mountain Days in Snowdonia
Автор: Terry Marsh
Издательство: Ingram
Жанр: Спорт, фитнес
isbn: 9781849653817
isbn:
Once over the stile, bear left beside a wall. The track takes you past the site of Dinas Osian, an Iron Age settlement and hill fort, although there is little to see of it today. Continue to a gate across the track not far from the top of the ascent at Bwlch y Groes, and through the gate continue a little further as far as a branching grassy vehicle track (SH561598). Leave the Bwlch y Groes path here, and climb easily onto the long and broad northern ridge of Moel Eilio, which is a delight to roam, the track soon merging with another that has climbed from Bwlch y Groes. The path gives lovely views to the west of the Lleyn Peninsula and Yr Eifl (The Rivals), swinging round across Caernarfon and across Anglesey to Holyhead Mountain.
ROUTE INFORMATION
| Distance | 13.8km/8½ miles |
| Height gain | 990m/3250ft |
| Time | 4–5 hours |
| Grade | energetic |
| Start point | Llanberis |
| Getting there | There are multiple parking areas along the shores of Llyn Padarn, some offering the temptation to paddle when you should be elsewhere |
| Maps | (Harvey Superwalker) Snowdonia and the Moelwynion; (Ordnance Survey) OL17 Snowdon/Yr Wyddfa |
| After-walk refreshment | Plenty of refreshment opportunity in Llanberis (including the almost legendary Pete’s Eats), but maybe call in at the 17th-century Pen y Ceunant Isaf licensed tea garden and café on the way down. |
Snowdon Mountain Railway
Eventually, as you approach the top section of Moel Eilio, you encounter a fence. Walk alongside this, the path taking you finally to a ladder-stile not far from the summit. Over the stile, bear right beside the ongoing fenceline and soon reach the large stone-built shelter on the summit. The view, as might be expected, is expansive, embracing the Nantlle Ridge and Mynydd Mawr.
Moel Cynghorion
The continuation from Moel Eilio follows a fenceline descending steeply in roughly a southeasterly direction. Follow the fence down to a stile at a wall corner beyond which lie the twin summits of Foel Gron and Foel Goch. From this summit there is a stunning view of Cwm Dwythwch and its lake, and then, after a dip, a final pull leads to a ladder-stile near a fence corner on Foel Goch. The summit is singularly undistinguished, other than by a tiny, low-lying cairn (if you can find it).
Return to the ladder-stile, and then take to a narrow path descending very steeply to Bwlch Maesgwm, a high mountain pass, from where a broad track (an ideal escape route if needed), heads towards Llanberis.
At the pass, cross a stile/gate and turn left beside a fence and wall following a clear path rising in easy stages to the top of Moel Cynghorion (The Hill of the Councillors). The top of the mountain is flat and grassy, and conceals a small, flattened cairn, as well as a few small ponds.
The name Moel Cynghorion bears the legend that when Edward I conquered Wales and started to build his castles, he tried to trick the Welsh bards into coming to an Eisteddfod, where he would have killed them. But they got wind of his plot and ran away to this lonely outpost; quite what they did when they got here is not disclosed, however.
Cross a ladder-stile on the summit fence, and head off in a northerly direction. There is no path to follow, and progress is what you make of it, descending steep grassy slopes, but trending a little to the left lower down. The descent is not difficult, but does require attention to placement of feet. Your target is a ladder-stile (SH584574) due south of Helfa-fawr, a renovated building, neither of which is visible until the last moment.
Over the stile, keep to the right of the building to locate its rough access track, and then follow this out, soon crossing the Afon Arddu, with waters bright and sparkling. The track leads past derelict farm buildings, and on to Hebron Station, where you intercept a narrow lane that serves Hafodty Newydd.
All that remains is to follow the lane back to Llanberis, passing first under the course of the Snowdon Mountain Railway, and then crossing the end of the Llanberis Path to the summit. Before reaching Llanberis, you also pass Pen y Ceunant Isaf, a licensed café, ideally placed to entice thirsty walkers to rest a while, and open all year.
Continue down the lane to the edge of Llanberis, and finally arrive close by the Mountain Railway station, and the start of the walk.
On the summit of Moel Cynghorion, looking towards Snowdon
GLYDERAU
On the cantilever, Glyder Fach (Walk 6)
The summit of Glyder Fach (Walk 6)
Black’s Picturesque Guide to North Wales, published in 1857, comments that ‘in savage grandeur the Glyder is not surpassed by any scene in Wales’. A radical observation, but still quite valid. There is something about the Glyders, Glyderau in Welsh, that sets them apart from other mountain groups; there is certainly more visible rock here, strewn randomly in awesome heaps, and lying at jaunty angles, as if someone has tidied up all the loose shavings from mountains created elsewhere, and made them into one great pile until they could figure out what to do with them. This is true mountain ground, rugged and rocky arguably like no other in Britain outside the Isle of Skye, a place where the elemental force of nature is all but tangible.
Anyone travelling from Bangor down the A5 through Nant Ffrancon cannot fail to be awed by the high cwms and soaring rocks walls of the north Glyder ridge stretching from Carnedd y Filiast to Y Garn, by the disturbing atmosphere of the Devil’s Kitchen and its singular gash of Twll Du, the Black Hole, or by the abruptness of the massive wall of Glyder Fach, which serves as a dominating bookend to the long valley. And then suddenly, as the road turns the corner, leaving Nant Ffrancon for Ogwen, the great cliffs of Tryfan hove into view; it is a breathtaking moment that has inspired hearts and tested resolve many times and with equal aplomb.
Tryfan moves you; it is the perfect mountain shape, the stuff of dreams, a sight you will never forget; a paradox, always the same, always different, taking on the light of the moment and playing tricks with it so that it becomes something quite magical. Arrive here from Capel Curig and the form of the mountain rises from the road in magisterial fashion, throwing down a challenge to everyone, a place where the careless, those who do not show it the respect it deserves, can so easily come to grief.
The name ‘Glyder’ has baffled people for many years as to its meaning, but the generally accepted translation is that it means a ‘pile’, or ‘heap’, after the array of tumbled boulders on the summits.
The mountains, rising at their highest to almost 1000 metres, seem to be bound on all sides by steep cliffs, and although this impression eases in the south, along Nantgwryd, better known perhaps as the Dyffryn valley, the severity resumes on the descent of the Llanberis Pass, along which there is a formidable array of cliffs.
Debris, СКАЧАТЬ