Sarah Ryan
Find solitude, scrambles and a slippery witch, on a horseshoe walk that forgoes the ordinary.
explores the Carneddau from the east and discovers one hell of a view... No, actually, she finds two of them. Where? See p24
Twitter @sarahoutside
“It’s a good view of Tryfan from here!” called photographer Tom as I trundled over to meet him at the summit, the land falling away steeply to my left. I rounded the cairn, and with a single step the Ogwen Valley came dramatically into view. The Glyders lay directly ahead, and at the fore of them, dominating, was Tryfan. There it sat, like a stegosaurus, all spiny rocks and hunched back. Though we were lower, we seemed to be above it, and at an angle that perfectly displayed its bristly arc and scaly terraces. This wasn’t just ‘a good view’ of it. It was the best.
I’d caught glimpses of something like this view before; I see it every time I drive along the A5, and I nearly crash into the
It was the kind of view that you can look on constantly, and which, after a few minutes, hits you afresh.
side of the road. There’s a moment, after you round the bend out of Capel Curig, when you first catch sight of Tryfan. It’s unmistakeable; it seems to grab you and shake you about. I almost always have to consciously think road, look at the road before my eye is drawn back again. But you never get to take in this view properly. You only get a few snatched milliseconds.
Yet here, on the head of the slippery witch (I imagine you have questions about that name; I’ll get to them), here I could sit and gaze for ages. Photos don’t do it justice: go and see for yourself. It was the kind of view that you can look on constantly, and which, after a few minutes, hits you afresh. As if you somehow forgot how good it was while you were looking at it. “That’s amazing,” I repeated, as though it had just appeared in front of us. I could write this whole story about it – but then you wouldn’t get to hear about the spicy little ridge, the silent cwms and the wild ponies galloping across a savannah-like plateau. And we were the only ones on this summit, looking at Tryfan in this way.
The great thing is, everything I’ve mentioned follows a logical horseshoe, looping from a car park and fitting neatly into a day... with options for more peaks, and the possibility of a bothy if you just can’t bring yourself to leave.
We parked in the basin of Cwm Eigiau. A vanful of students pulled up and piled out; other walkers arrived bearing rucksacks and dog leads. We weren’t alone
then, but we set off down the track alone and stayed that way for hours. Beside us, sheep nosed out grass, skittering away if we passed too near; ahead the horizon was blocked by the very hills we’d be walking over. To the left was Pen Llithrig y Wrach, ‘the slippery peak of the witch’; then Pen yr Helgi Du, ‘the hill of the black hound’; a ridge leading to Carnedd Llewelyn and the big wide way down again. Witches and dark hunting dogs aren’t the only mythical characters to have set up home here; legend tells of a dragon, Y Garrog, who lived in the hills above Dolgarrog village, swooping down to lift a sheep or two for dinner.
The track leads directly into the valley, soon following the dam wall around Llyn Eigiau and passing it most closely at a wide, crumbled breach. This is where the dam burst 91 years ago, its contents barrelling downhill into Coedty reservoir; the force of it broke the Coedty walls releasing huge torrents of water, flooding Dolgarrog below and killing 16 people. The entire structure is deemed too weak to rebuild so the gap hasn’t been fixed but the reservoir remains, at about half the size originally planned. We climb up onto the wall, strolling along its top, then hop back down to the track. There’s a farmhouse, and soon some old abandoned quarry works, streaming with collected rainwater. Here, the track ends and we push uphill through pathless heathery hummocks, towards the summit of Pen Llithrig y Wrach.
There’s nothing much to this hill – just heather, ascent and small streams – but it sets us up for an excellent ridge traverse, and the quiet is quite beguiling. Its top is fairly rounded and flat, except to the east, where it drops sharply down to Llyn Cowlyd. Ravens cruise over the blue water below our feet, and every now and again I hear their pig-like gronk. I’d settled into a quiet appreciation of the place by the time we reached the top, which is why that surprise view of Tryfan has such a punch. You don’t see it at all until you are on or over the summit. At which point you get a proper ‘Wow!’ moment.
From the slippery witch to the black
I turn, just briefly – and there, suddenly, is the most glorious sight...
hound… The slope drifts downwards, rising again to Pen yr Helgi Du’s indistinct summit – after which point things get a lot more narrow, rocky and exposed. Bwlch Eryl Farchog or ‘the hound’s tail’ – the ridge that leads off from the summit – is not widely known, but it’s delightful. It isn’t especially hard and you couldn’t honestly call it a scramble, but there seems to be a lot of vacant space on either side. A path wiggles down between boulders and heather clumps; on your left is a drop to a lake, far below; on your right is a plunge to rocks and the frothing tributaries of Afon Eigiau. It isn’t difficult, but it is a little airy. This is the dash of spice that brings the walk alive. The saddle is simple and leads to a rocky heap. Here now is your scramble.
A large stone face leans away and I tuck my fingers around its edge, searching out a notch with my foot and pushing upwards. The line reaches up, then left, and I follow its curve, my fingers and feet finding comfortable niches each time I stretch for them. The rock is homely, hiding the drop from view, and this short section of full-body movement is over all too soon. Now for the final pull up Carnedd Llewelyn.
So far, we’ve had quiet hills to ourselves, one of the best views of Tryfan I’ve ever seen, an invigorating ridge – and now we’re about to climb Wales’ second highest mountain. What more can this walk offer?
The answer is: yet another cracking view. From the top of Carnedd Llewelyn we look down into the Ogwen Valley. There’s Tryfan again, the rest of the Glyderau, Snowdon’s summit, the long slope of Carnedd Dafydd, the sea and ah, there’s a rising cloud. And here, arrrgh, maddeningly, is a cloud of midges. Time to leave. While rock-skipping down towards Foel Grach, I turn, just briefly – and there, suddenly, is the most glorious sight.
Yr Elen is higher than we are now. It swoops to an elegant point, fine ridges cascading on two sides. The cwm is an enormous crater, with viciously steep scree slopes dropping from the summit to the lake. It looks like way more of a mountain than I would ever expect to find here. It looks a little dangerous. For the second time, I’m stopped in my tracks by the sight of just one mountain. Not a panorama, or even a landscape. This is like the hill equivalent of a high fashion portrait, the scene dedicated to and dominated by one entrancing beauty. I have to stop and take it in because to continue walking would almost certainly mean tripping over my own boots. After some time simply gazing, letting the image burn into my mind like a photograph, we turn away and continue on. Remember at the start I mentioned a savannah? It isn’t far away.
If you wanted, you could turn north to more big players of the Carneddau – Foel Grach, Carnedd Gwenllian, Foel-fras – and create an über-loop, taking them all in before dropping down to nearby Dulyn bothy. But the way east is much less frequently travelled. Paths surround this hunk of land on almost every side, but few cross it. It doesn’t need them, this ridge that I want to call a plateau. The grass is long, the going is easy. There are few hummocks, holes or bogs. You can simply walk along. It’s quiet, there’s no litter, the people gravitating to Carnedd Llewelyn have come down another way. Partway down I turn to look back on the route we’ve covered: the ridge, the mountain peaks, almost the whole route can be seen from here. The sun casts amber on the sedge and we simply go along, mountains and lakes to each side.
At a small pool, two ponies nuzzle each other gamely. We approach slowly and they look up, don’t care much, and finally gambol away, boshing each other with their noses as they run. Photographer Tom and I marvel for a bit before moving on. This last section of the ridge is easy walking, but somehow deceptive. I keep erring right when I should be erring left. A great crest of rocks marks the end, like an especially gnarly thumbnail, and we cut around beside it to join a broad track.
From here, it’s simply down and round to the car. Behind us are the mountains we’ve climbed: a slippery witch with an astounding view, a black hound with a toothy ridge, a 3000er, an unforgettable angle on Yr Elen, and a wide grassland. We’ve found solitude, quiet slopes, invigorating edges; we’ve marvelled at the view with fellow walkers then sloped off to find hillsides with barely a footprint. If you were peak-bagging you could tick many more from your list from the west; but if you want to experience the mountains on your own and to get a feel for the Carneddau that few people see, approach from the east. Actually, even if you are peakbagging, make time to explore the east – there are things here that can be seen
from nowhere else.