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A2: CARNEDDAU: SOUTHERN RIDGES

A popular ridge walk over the highest Carneddau summits.

Distance/Time:

16km (10 miles). 5¼ hours.

Ascent:

1050m (3500ft)

Major Summits:

Pen yr Ole Wen – 979m (3211ft)

Carnedd Dafydd – 1044m (3423ft)

Carnedd Llewelyn – 1064m (3485ft)

Pen yr Helgi Du – 833m (2733ft)

Terrain:

Mostly good going over grass and stony paths.

Main Summer Difficulties:

Three short scrambles: on Pen yr Ole Wen, and on either side of Bwlch Eryl Farchog.

Winter Conditions:

An excellent outing in good winter conditions. However, under deep powder the scrambling sections are awkward and the whole route tiring. Cornices can form above Cwm Lloer and above Ysgolion Duon.

A large party approaches the east ridge of Pen yr Ole Wen on Route A2

Emergency Alternatives:

Descent to Ffynnon Llugwy as for Variant (a). Descent into Cwm Llafar from Bwlch Cyfryw Drum (683637). Descent to Ffynnon Llugwy from Bwlch Eryl Farchog (695633).

Special Problems:

Route-finding on Carnedd Llewelyn in bad visibility.

Approach:

On the A5 between Capel Curig and Bethesda.

Start:

Glan Dena (668605). Parking on main road.

Finish:

As above.

ROUTE DESCRIPTION

The track from Glan Dena continues to Tal y Llyn Ogwen. Just before reaching this farm, a path goes up right – over a stile – and strikes up the hillside towards Cwm Lloer. Shortly before levelling out, it veers left and rises to meet the blunt terminating nose of the east ridge of Pen yr Ole Wen. After a short scramble up a gully cleaving this nose, the path eases and winds up through boulders and heather to the summit1 (1½ hrs).

From the summit, a stony path circles above Cwm Lloer before rising – past a huge cairn – towards Carnedd Dafydd, where it eventually loses itself among boulders. From the summit windbreaks,2 the path now goes due east across rocks with fine views of the Ysgolion Duon buttresses. Alternative paths further right rejoin this main one at a shallow col3 before the steady rise over scree to the summit of Carnedd Llewelyn4 (1½hrs).

The path goes south-east down the summit dome, then follows open grass slopes to the rocks above Craig yr Ysfa. A short scramble leads down to Bwlch Eryl Farchog,5 and a similar one leads out up the far side to Pen yr Helgi Du6 (1 hr).

Descend the grass ridge of Y Braich southwards. On passing a gap in the transverse stone wall (699609), contour right then descend diagonally to cross the leat waterway at a footbridge. Follow the leat rightwards to the Ffynnon Llugwy access road and hence down to the A5.7 Glan Dena now lies ½ hour to the west (1¾ hrs).

Summit of Pen yr Ole Wen

If you stand near Ogwen Cottage, facing down the valley towards Bangor and the coast, you have at each hand two very different mountain groups. On your left, the Glyders, rocky and intricate; and on your right, the Carneddau, grassy and huge. Different sides, different days.

Different, but not divorced: later that day, the views from one to the other will emphasize the contrasts and endorse the choice you made – left or right – all those hours ago. As it happens, that daunting view up the south side of Pen yr Ole Wen from Ogwen Cottage has initiated a good many more lefts than rights. This is a pity, because from Glan Dena, at the far end of Llyn Ogwen, and not much more than a mile back, is a much less tortured beginning to a day on the Carneddau.

The route up from Glan Dena is all bubbling brooks and pretty views. There is a classic picture of Y Garn – elegantly raised up beyond Llyn Ogwen, a foreground conveniently filled with well-proportioned farm buildings; and an unusual view of Tryfan, falling behind now, in an especially slender and isolated mood. But pretty views and uphill walking are together as inedible as cream and spinach. Instead the reality is one of thumbs hooked resolutely under rucsac straps while eyes are focused – when at all – quite firmly on the ground.

Looking back to Pen yr Ole Wen from the summit of Carnedd Dafydd on Route A2

Arrival of the ridge proper allows a moment to take stock. The road and its constant hum of cars, coaches and carriers is already far below (the A5 is without equal as a conveyor of tourists and frozen turkeys), and is replaced now by the clamour of seagull traffic over Ffynnon Lloer. No lesser squeal could disturb that calm. But all this is delaying matters: ahead rises a blunt nose of rock, and no promise of an easy way through. Up against it, and the shadows reveal texture; closer still and the texture reveals fissures; and then the fissures reveal holds. And now the holds themselves, large and comforting, reveal the polish of countless other grateful feet. A cool gully; a move or two; and the step is behind. Above is a twisting, heathery path; a sudden view into Cwm Lloer; and then only the great Carneddau sky.

You want to stride out, all power and progress, towards Carnedd Dafydd; but the path is bouldery, and the circling of Cwm Lloer takes longer than you’d hoped. Not that you want to get away; just that there remains a feeling of apprenticeship until Dafydd is underfoot. It comes soon enough, its summit cone like a huge collapsed cairn. There is shelter here on wild days – thanks to a cluster of S-shaped windbreaks; a brief respite in which to unravel your tongue and straighten the squint in your eyes.

The connecting ridge between Carnedd Dafydd (back right) and Carnedd Llewelyn on Route A2

Buttoned up and resolute, like ships out of port, dark shapes are seen to rise and shudder, casting off for Carnedd Llewelyn. Rounding the Black Ladders they must negotiate the peaks and troughs of petrified waves, glimpsing the horrors of the Black Pit. They gather themselves up into convoys for safety, drawn ever onwards by plastic map cases held to the fore like spinnakers in a following wind…

Thus aided, a fixed number of upward metres ought to land us on Carnedd Llewelyn. But can we be sure? On a misty day the summit is thronged by confused travellers who, like train passengers, are certain only of their final destinations. Bewildered, we clutter the platform – Is this it? Are we here? – while those who have the answers stride purposefully through like unapproachable station porters and disappear into the gloom. Soon we are gripped by communal panic and give up the wait. Like brave Oates we up and off into the storm, promising to return. But we never do.

If our luck is in, and if in the mist we have not inadvertently returned the way we came, or walked over a cliff, the way ahead soon begins to smooth from scree to grass. Great, delicious swathes of it are draped over the backbone of the ridge from Llewelyn to Pen yr Helgi Du. Huge, loping strides consume the slope in minutes, while a bouncing rucsac exaggerates the rate of progress like an over-enthusiastic metronome.

The best things in life, despite being free, are unfortunately almost always short-lived. This one is no exception. A stubbed toe against the first of a string of vertebrae above Craig yr Ysfa proves the point. Now begins an itty-bitty descent, picking and choosing among the bleached bones like a scavenging bird a week too late.

Suddenly it is over. Oh yes, there’s still miles to go; but once planted at the col, flasks out and talk of dinner, there surfaces an overwhelming sense of return. A brief scurry down right would soon see you pounding that tarmac extravaganza down to the valley. But that is hardly a proper way to end this day. Gather yourselves up with a few scraps of willpower, instead, and attack the ridge to Helgi Du.

At this juncture, those of a cunning bent will notice a sly path contouring the slate hillside rightwards – a short cut to Y Braich. Pedants, summit baggers, and those generally short on sight and imagination will instead groan upwards on the rocky teeth of the ridge with all the doggedness of roller-coaster cars collecting potential energy to fuel their one, final, crazy lunge down Y Braich’s unresisting grass.

The road walk back to Glan Dena would make for a cruel epilogue were the mind not already numbed by the promise of reprieve. And so it is that the sky gradually narrows and the valley sides fold up on you, one on each side – slowly, reluctantly, like a book closing shut on a bluebottle at the end of a good chapter.

Carnedd Dafydd seen from the summit slores of Carnedd Llewelyn on Route A2

Crossing Bwlch Eryl Farchog on Route A2. The rocky ridge ahead gives an easy scramble to the summit of Pen yr Helgi Du