Gentian Capel Curig Trip (7th-9th October 2022)

October’s Gentian trip was my third with the club and, by quirk of my availability, also my third in northern Snowdonia! Still, it’s always a good area to visit with a wealth of choice of walks. This time we were staying in Plas y Brenin’s ‘Moelwyn’ bunkhouse, in Capel Curig.

I got a reasonably prompt finish from work and was on the road by around 4:30pm. Surprisingly, I didn’t hit any significant traffic and, with a short break in Llangollen for fish and chips, completed the journey by 8pm. I found most of the others in the bar. Ted popped down to give me my key and a quick tour of the bunkhouse facilities. Once I’d chosen a bed and brought my luggage in from the car, I went back up to the bar for a couple of drinks and a chat with various members, some familiar from previous trips and others I had not met before.

On the Saturday morning, we convened in the kitchen at 7:30am for the customary group breakfast of porridge, cereal and toast. Afterwards the walk leaders presented their plans for the day – I offered to lead a walk from the bunkhouse over the Glyderau and back along the Ogwen valley and got six takers (Ned, Vivienne, Mike, Sheena, Simon and Martin).

After tidying away the breakfast things and packing our bags, we were on our way by around 8:45am and set off in sunny spells up the bridleway to reach the eastern end of the ridge. A reasonable path climbs gradually up onto Cefn y Capel then on, boggy at times, to Y Foel Goch, with ever improving views northeast across the Ogwen valley into the Carneddau and south into the Moelwynion. The cloud gradually cleared off all the peaks except Snowdon, which remained well shrouded all day.

Beyond Y Foel Goch, the view was dominated by the dramatic outlines of Bristly Ridge and Tryfan to the right. We continued up to Glyder Fach, where the ground becomes much rockier. In the dry conditions, it was nice and grippy and we made the customary visit to the Cantilever Rock for photographs before scrambling up onto the summit boulders. We then continued along the ridge to the pointy tor of Castell y Gwynt, of which a few of us also scrambled to the top.

We had lunch in the lee of the rocks and then took the path around the south side to continue down and back up to Glyder Fawr, with more interesting rock formations, and steeply down the scree paths to Llyn y Cŵn. From there, a good path leads very steeply down through the Devil’s Kitchen, with the wet black cliffs towering above on the left and Llyn Idwal below. Before long, we were down by the lake shore and, a little later, at Idwal Cottage where some of the group paused briefly for refreshments.

That just left the fairly long but flat walk all the way back down the valley. The first couple of kilometres are around the back of Llyn Ogwen, a path I don’t think I’ve taken before, with good views over the water to Tryfan. The rest of the way follows an old tramway along the south side of the valley, which made for quick progress over the final hour or so back to Plas y Brenin.
A map of our route is available here.

John prepared a tasty Spaghetti Bolognese for dinner for the meat-eaters, with a couple of drinks from the Gentian bar to wash it down. Afterwards, John and Sue entertained us with some ceilidh-style music. It turns out they were among the musicians who had performed at the Kong Mountain Marathon in August – small world!

Much higher winds were forecast for Sunday but I decided to offer another hill-walk anyway. Six people (the same ones as the previous day, except that Marie replaced Mike) chose to join me for my proposed round of some of the quiet Nuttalls in the east of the Moelwyn range. After breakfast, we packed up all our stuff into the cars and had a quick clean-up of the bunkhouse before setting off. We drove a few miles via Betws-y-Coed and Dolwyddelan to park in a layby at the summit of the Crimea Pass.

The first objective of the day was Allt-fawr. A ridge with a small but obvious path leads all the way up from the pass. In one exposed section, we were barely able to stand up or make progress forward against the wind! After that, we fortunately found that the worst of it could be avoided by keeping to the more sheltered right-hand side. All the way, we enjoyed views north towards Moel Siabod and, intermittently, we could also see down to the quarry wastelands surrounding Blaenau Ffestiniog. Although the skies were overcast, the air clarity was very good, and in the distance we could see the Rhinogs and, beyond that, Cadair Idris.

The summit of Allt-fawr was not as windy as I’d expected. We continued without difficulty down the other side, with interesting views over the various small tarns scattered over the plateau. We passed beside Llyn Conglog as we made our way towards Moel Druman, pausing for a snack before the final ascent.

The final peaks of the day were the three tops of Ysgafell Wen, each with a few interesting rocky outcrops. Cnicht dominated the view ahead, with Moel Hebog and the Nantlle Ridge further away to the west. From there, it was a short but very steep descent on grass into the head of the Lledr valley, where we had lunch in a large sheepfold.

The walk down the valley was rather awkward, with lots of tussocks to negotiate beside the river. Consequently, we were glad when we finally reached the easy ground of the tramway back to Crimea Pass for the last couple of miles. Back at the cars, we said our farewells and departed, in my case heading north to Ruth’s house for the night en route to Scotland. To be continued…
A map of our route is available here.

Another really enjoyable weekend in the hills with like-minded people. I look forward to the next trip, to the Brecon Beacons in around a month’s time.

My full photo album is available on Google photos here.