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WALK 6

Gallt yr Ogof and Y Foel Goch

Start/Finish	Capel Curig SH 721 582
Distance	14km (9 miles)
Total ascent	670m (2198ft)
Grade	Moderate
Time	5hr
Terrain	An often wet ridge and rough descent in Cwm Tryfan
Map	OS OL17 Snowdon/Yr Wyddfa
Access	Capel Curig is on the A5 between Betws-y-Coed and Ogwen
Parking	National park car park behind the Pinnacle Café by the junction with the A4086

Gallt yr Ogof is a striking mountain that not many people remember. It is an imposing enough presence driving north west on the A5, a great bruiser of a hill that fills the windscreen: it is neither elegant nor subtle but it is utterly ignorable. The problem is the company it keeps. Many a traveller will have admired its vast, rugged flank studded with rocks and shattered buttresses only to instantly forget it as the even more imposing ridges of Tryfan come into view. It would be a rare hill that could compete with that. So Gallt yr Ogof and its neighbour Y Foel Goch stand largely ignored by most visitors to the Ogwen, and that is a shame: together they provide not only the emphatic eastern full stop to the extended ridge of the Glyderau but also offer a perfect viewpoint for their more illustrious neighbours and beyond.

From the car park turn right up the lane away from the village and after a couple of hundred metres at a gate by a farm take the path heading up leftwards through the outcrops and bracken. As it reaches the crest the views begin to open out. To the left Moel Siabod has been a companion for much of the ascent, but now the whole of the Snowdon Horseshoe is revealed while on the other side of the valley the eastern Carneddau begin to appear. Indeed the views are perhaps one of the strongest attractions of this high level promenade and a particularly welcome feature of this next section. Were it not for the views this long, flat, often soggy ridge might otherwise make for an uninspiring interlude.

Looking towards Gallt yr Ogof

At the end of the plateau the path climbs the grassy slope, crossing a drystone wall by a ladder stile before being funnelled between a tumbledown wall and a more modern wire fence as it heads towards the skyline. In its haste to reach the higher tops of the Glyderau the main path actually bypasses the 763m (2503ft) summit of Gallt yr Ogof.

As the path arrives on the rim of the Ogwen Valley Tryfan makes a dramatic entrance befitting its starring role, leaping into view between a gap in the knolls, quickly to be joined by the Glyderau themselves and the spiky profile of Bristly Ridge is seen to particularly good effect, silhouetted against the skyline. Having stopped to admire the huge buttresses, it is necessary to backtrack a short way eastwards to visit the summit cairn of Gallt yr Ogof sitting among the boulders on a rocky plinth.

Tryfan and the Glyders from Gallt yr Ogof