MAKE-BELIEVE MOUNTAINS
Looks like a mountain. Feels like a mountain. Only difference is, it’s not raining. Trail escapes to the rugged coast of the Llyn Peninsula in search of some sunshine on a rainy Snowdonia day.
The Weather Gods have always been important allies for hillwalkers. Me, I’ve often considered myself quite lucky. It feels like I’ve had more than my fair share of those moments when the sun shines despite the forecasters predicting said rain. But a lot of things went wrong this last year, and one of those things was that my mountain weather fortune ran out. And in spectacular style.
Time and again I found myself up in the clouds, wrapped up in sodden Gore-Tex, the view left to my imagination. Dodging first storm Brendan, then Jorge, then Francis (in August!)… it was starting to get ridiculous. I needed another plan.
Snowdonia was grey. Again. I’d chanced it on day one and climbed Cadair Idris, and returned with only a misty selfie next to a trig to add to my increasing collection of summits shots that, frankly, could have been taken anywhere.
Scouring the weather forecasts, there was just a glimmer of hope to escape the murk, but it meant leaving the mountains. The Llyn Peninsula is a rather unfortunately-shaped protrusion of land to the west of Snowdonia. Poking provocatively out into the Irish Sea it experiences around a third of the rainfall of the Snowdonian mountains and a lot more sunshine. It’s also an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and is littered with both land and marine conservation areas and Sites of Scientific Interest.
Not known for its mountainous terrain, Yr Eifl is the Peninsula’s highest hill at 564m, but we were headed west, as far west as it’s possible to go from Snowdonia, to the Land’s End of the Llyn, to discover a mountain experience without the rain... and without mountains!
Leaping dolphins
Sure enough, we left the clouds that clung stubbornly and menacingly to the Snowdonian slate and began our mountain-esque adventure in mild November sunshine and an airiness you can only find on the coast or a mountain. At 150m directly above sea-level on Mynydd Mawr, you could barely even call it a hill. But as the ground tumbled into rocky crags and Bardsey Island protruded out into the Irish Sea like a peak in a cloud inversion, that familiar feeling of space and freedom of being in the hills was instantly recreated.
Finding a rocky prominence at the western most frontier of the peninsula I stared out at the blue expanse, imagining the hidden world beneath the surface that is secret to all but those with a scuba certificate. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a splash. A wave? A diving bird? My imagination? I scanned the area and I couldn’t help but let out a squeal of amazement when the splashes revealed themselves to be dolphins leaping in a pod of 5… no, 10… no 20+ adults and babies. They were so close to where I was standing, leisurely passing by in leaps and bounds oblivious to my watching eyes. It was a spellbinding half an hour that rooted me to the spot. It is one of the delights of this area that you definitely won’t find in the mountains! Dolphins and porpoises are often seen here and are subject to a research project, with the blunt-nosed, tall-finned Risso dolphin being a regular visitor despite usually only being found in much deeper waters.
To the edge
If nothing else spectacular happened that day I would have been happy, but the walk had only just begun and next up was a short rocky scramble down to St Mary’s Well – a natural spring-fed freshwater pool nestled in the sea cliffs. Pilgrims would travel the “most hazardous path to get, at low water, a mouthful of the spring…. So their wish, whatsoever it was, was surely to be fulfilled,” wrote Thomas Pennant in the 18th century on his travels in Wales.
We kept to the cliff edge as much as possible, although the Welsh Coast Path will guide you more easily around the whole peninsula if you choose. Like the mountains, the west coast is often at battle with the elements. It has a wild and untameable character. It’s a place of drama and wide-open space. But it’s not only hill-loving humans that are drawn to these rugged parts, as mountain-dwelling birds are also common here. On this walk alone, with the help of Trail photographer and wildlife spotter, Tom Bailey, we spied a mountain-nesting snow bunting, an impressive aerial display of a red-beaked chough (a relation to the to the alpine chough), cliff-dwelling peregrine falcons, our regular mountain companion, the raven; plus a very lost, and super rare, desert wheatear.
Keeping the sea to our right, there was no need for navigation as we swung around into Aberdaron Bay. Out of the sea breeze, the sun was warm and the coastal path gave a perfect view back to the Snowdonian mountains on the horizon, still enveloped in gloom. Yes, we’d had to eek out a mountain experience from this unlikely location, but the 13km circuit of the peninsula tip had been full of surprises. Not only sunshine, but there’d been rocky scrambles, dramatic scenery, wildlife galore, and that wonderful sense of wellbeing only delivered from time spent in wild and exposed places. With the final climb of Mynydd Anelog at a whopping 192m high, the total ascent of our walk was 741m – incredibly all the ups and downs came to just 60m short of the climb to Snowdon’s summit via the Pyg Track.
Sometimes battling the elements is part of the challenge of the mountains, but if the Weather Gods aren’t smiling on you inland and you crave a touch of sunshine, then check the forecast for the coast – you may find more than just better weather.
“BATTLING WITH THE ELEMENTS, THE WEST COAST HAS A WILD AND UNTAMEABLE CHARACTER”