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Category: Wales

Snowdon – The Monarch of Eryri

Snowdon – The Monarch of Eryri

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Snowdon is majestic in its glacially sculpted profile, exuding undisputed dominance as the fundamental nucleus of the national park that bears its name. The mountain well deserves its plaudits and is all things to all people, a multifaceted giant, friendly in benign conditions to all abilities, yet with a ferocious reserve for those who stray from sound judgement. Snowdon is the most-climbed mountain in Britain with over 600,000 walkers and a further 140,000 attaining the summit by train every year….

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Brecon Beacons – The high life of South Wales

Brecon Beacons – The high life of South Wales

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Pen y Fan is the highest point in South Wales and a mecca for its denizens, with two million people living within an hour’s drive of the national park and seemingly born with the innate desire to stand on its top. The mountain also attracts walkers from far and wide, the National Trust now estimating that half a million people attempt to climb the mountain every year, visitor numbers having doubled in the last five years. The summit may be…

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Black Mountain – Beacons for the connoisseur

Black Mountain – Beacons for the connoisseur

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Y Mynydd Du is a landscape to inspire folklore, legends and myths. There is the tragic tale of the Lady of Llyn y Fan Fach and temperature inversions forming swirling valley mists are locally purported to be dragon’s breath. You may take this frivolous lore with a pinch of fairy dust, but you will nonetheless be arrested by an undeniably magical atmosphere amidst the sculpted skyline, whose rugged apron plunges precipitously into glacial cirques. Glossing over the fact that a…

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Yr Eifl – Snowdonia’s Miniature Rival

Yr Eifl – Snowdonia’s Miniature Rival

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Commonly called ‘The Rivals’, rather appropriate for this group of three pointy peaks thrusting from the ocean and jostling for attention, the name is merely an anglicised adaptation from the pronunciation rather than a direct translation. In the modern Welsh language, there is no such word as Eifl and it perhaps derived from olden days when it is thought to have described a Trident or Fork, which is certainly an apt physical description. The hills form the highest land on…

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Arenig Fawr – The Belvedere of Snowdonia

Arenig Fawr – The Belvedere of Snowdonia

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Arenig Fawr gains its place on the Worthy list principally through the attractive combination of altitude, isolation and the consequent superiority as a viewpoint. As an ascent, the route via Llyn Arenig Fawr is a rewarding walk and the summit is a fine place to be. Beyond that, the mountain’s other faces are less distinguished, although this quiet, unpretentious slice of Wales definitely deserves to be on your to-do list. Located towards the eastern fringes of the Snowdonia National Park,…

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Craig Cerrig Gleisiad – a landscape of the lost world

Craig Cerrig Gleisiad – a landscape of the lost world

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Within sight of the bustling caterpillar assault of the masses on Pen-y-Fan, the serenity of Craig Cerrig Gleisiad is emphatic. Aptly described as an ‘atmospheric amphitheatre’, this National Nature Reserve is a delectable discovery in the heart of the Brecon Beacons National Park. Here, trees, shrubs, rare arctic-alpine plants, wildflowers and peregrine falcons have colonised the vertiginous slopes creating an extraordinary environment. It’s a fine little hill to climb too and despite the compact proportions resulting in a sub 70…

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