Northern Carneddau round
Pathless expanses and big open skies make the northern Carneddau the perfect place stretch your mountain legs and reboot your mind, says Jeremy Ashcroft.
TCarnedd Gwenllian. Radiating out from these main peaks is a complex selection of open corries and long ridges. They head off in all directions and provide a myriad of routes to be explored. A classic combination is to make an approach via the roller-coaster ridge occupied by the subsidiary summits of Bera Mawr and Bera Bach, and then – after a visit to the main peaks – you can plunge into the depths of Cwm Anafon for the return leg. This combination delivers a magnificent outing that allows you to summit all the main peaks while at the same time exploring a truly wild mountainscape.
All three main summits breach the magic 3,000ft contour. The only time you are likely to see fellow humans are the fleeting figures of intrepid walkers on the last leg of bagging the ‘Welsh 3000ers’. Fortunately they tend to stick to the path that handrails the main ridge. The rest of the time the only company you’ll have will be the odd sheep and the free-ranging herds of wild mountain ponies. he peaks of the northern Carneddau are a world apart from other mountains in Snowdonia. They are characterised by gentler profiles, comfortable corries and spacious ridges instead of the more normal jagged and craggy outlines found elsewhere in the area. The spirit of the place is also different. You could describe it as being moody, and certainly on days of dark skies it carries an air of melancholy. This though just tells only part of the story; a more accurate word to describe it would be ‘reflective’.
It is a place driven by the interactions of the weather, the landscape and your own demeanour. Set out across these hills on a wild day, and the navigation and physical challenges will totally dominate your mind. A blue-sky day on the other hand will give you all the time and space to clear your head and put your world to rights.
Three mountains make up the main axis of the range: these are Foel Grach, Foel-fras and