Glyders in the Mist - Photo Gallery

I had arranged to spend the weekend in North Wales, staying with friends at Jesse James' Bunkhouse near Llanberis and I was hoping for some good weather to get to know some new hills. Wales had obviously decided that I have had my fair share of good weather this year and there was plenty of Welsh mist on the hills and it seemed to be moving quite quickly. Simon and Alison let me pick the route even though they have much more experience of the Welsh mountains than I do. The walk I had planned needed the use of two cars, we left one at Idwal Cottage and drove back to Gwern Gof Isaf to start the walk.

After walking to the farmhouse to pay my £1 car parking fee I walked back towards the road and after the last building is a stile that gets you onto the muddy start of a faint footpath. The footpath is at the start of Braich y Ddeugw, a reasonably easy ridge and the first challenge for the spell checker. The path disappears and reappers in the grass, the ground is wet but it isn't too boggy, we had to make a course adjustment back onto the ridge but it wasn't any drier and the path wasn't any more obvious.

It was feeling quite warm in the early stages of the climb but once we were on the definite ridge it got steeper, rockier and windier as we got higher. All the way up the ridge there was a good view of the distinctive Tryfan, almost free of mist,and there was a tunnel in the mist through which we could see the attractive sunlit hils on the far side of Llyn Ogwen. The wind got very strong, the kind that stops you in your tracks, the dark fast moving mist looks fearful on Glyder Fach.

The interesting but not difficult ridge leads to Drws Nodded, the door to the Glyders ridge, you have to skirt around the boggy ground near Llyn y Caseg-fraith where your foot sinks almost ankle deep into the wetness. We could see the path through rockier ground heading upwards towards Glyder Fach and as we made a beeline for it we came across a faint path going our way. The flat grass suddenly came over all bouldery, a jumble of boulders with larger ones standing like sentries at regular intervals.

Amongst the many upright boulders there was one split almost in two with a smaller piece of slate wedged into the top of the gap, it would be an unusual natural phenomena but was probably a strange human attempt to break the boulder apart. As we walked into the mist the boulders were taller, slimmer and getting larger as we got closer to the summit. The boulders are striking when they thrust upwards in groups with their spiked profile and fascinating when they lie on their sides forming bridges and the famous Cantilever rock.

There was clambering over boulders to be done and small cairns to be found on the ascent to the summit plateau, as interesting an ascent as you could wish for until you reach the stony flat area with a large outcrop of spikes including the Cantiler. As I was photographing it some younger (male) walkers came by, I didn't know them but asked one if he would climb to the end of the outstretched rock so I could photograph it. Was it silly of me to ask or just reckless for the guy to walk to the very end of the rock and attempt to stand up in that strong wind? Anyway I got the photograph, it would have been rude not to after he made the effort.

There was more clambering to be done, over large flat boulders that were angled and slippery in places to get to the final upthrusting rocks at the summit, but not actually standing at the top. The clamber off the summit required some stretching of the legs and getting wet of the fifth point of contact whilst using it to help get over and down the large damp boulders. There seemed to be a reasonably obvious path but soon we had a challenge to our navigation, there seemed to be a steep descent over boulders with no apparent path. We didn't really want to lose a lot of height in such a hard descent so we walked back upwards to where an imposing rock upthrust seemed to bar a route along the ridge.

The name of Castell y Gwynt gives you a good idea of the height and angle of the tall rocks, there was certainly no way of getting around the sheer face around the other side of the outcrop. Simon went ahead to investigate and as unlikely as it seemed there was quite a reasonable way through the rocks and a manageable descent requiring lots of fifth point of contact over damp flat faced boulders.

We eventually arrived at a cairn at what we thought was the grassy col we were expecting to get to, there were no other clues in the mist as to where to go next. We set off on a compass bearing, traversing a steep bilberry and grass slope until we agreed that we should be up on the ridge. After climbing up the steep slope and almost at the ridge there was a wide obvious path, the kind of path that demands you go back to see why you couldn't find it earlier.

Soon after we started to walk along the path the ridge broadened out into a wide grassy plateau, there were many large cairns on the obvious path. We thought we knew where we were but with hindsight we were at the top of the Y Cribin ridge. After walking further along the path the ground fell away steeply, this was obviously the edge of Cwm Cneifion, the Nameless Cwm. It was the Invisible Cwm today but you get the feeling that this might be a good view of a very long way down.

Further along the path the grass gives way to stonier ground, the path disappears and you are on a very large plateau with several more rock upthrusts. The individual upthrusts are too big to be called outcrops but not really big enough to be called subsidiary peaks and there is probably not enough room to stand at the top of them. Having passed several of the upthrusts and thinking we had reached the summit we were having a discussion about where the descent path might be when another pair of walkers came by. We swapped directions with them before walking to another pair of upthrusts on higher ground that the other walkers had said was the summit and it certainly felt like the highest ground.

We found a reasonably obvious stony path but after starting to descend we decided I was leading us in the wrong direction. We turned back uphill and the path took us up to a cairn and another path heading in the right direction. We soon got to a steep eroded descent, it is so eroded that the scree has been scrubbed from the surface and only steepness is left. At least we got below the mist and there were reasonable views down to Llyn Ogwen and of the obvious paths ascending Y Garn. There was a final stony gully, reminiscent of a mini Lords Rake, filled with loose scree before arriving at a crossroads of paths near Llyn y Cwn.

The obvious path to Y Garn looked very inviting, to me anyway but the others were concerned about descending the narrow ridge in strong winds so they turned off towards Devil's Kitchen. As I started the easy climb it started to rain and by the time I reached the summit it was raining proper Welsh rain, it was extremely windy and it looked a long way down that narrow ridge.

I continued past the summit and found an obvious path going downhill on the right, the path is steep but at first it is off the ridge so the wind wasn't too bad but it was getting very wet. After the initial descent the path got back onto the crest of the ridge and it was very exposed, the wind was in the mood to stop me in my tracks again. At the steepest part of the path on the narrow nose of the ridge the erosion made it awkward to descend anway but there were a couple of worrying moments as I had to drop to the ground to stop the wind blowing me off the ridge.

At a point slightly off the ridge I realised I had to put on my waterproof trousers because I was in danger of getting very wet. In the strong wind it was difficult to hang on to the over trousers as I struggled to put them on and thankfully the zips didn't stick on this occasion. Further down the path was eroded down to rock making an interesting descent in the wind and rain. What I don't understand is why after 3pm in late October in very bad weather are there people climbing this hill?

Eventually the gradient eased and the ground became very swampy close to Llyn Idwal. I wouldn't especially want to try to navigate in those conditions and thankfully the path carried straight on over the wet ground and after descending an interesting steep sided gully Idwal Cottage appeared just in front of me.

I had intended to walk again on Sunday morning but the weather was too horrible even for me, I will have to come back for that walk.

Andy Wallace 29th October 2005