beyond, dreary when the sky is overcast but strangely enticing when speckled by shafts of sunlight or powdered with snow.
To the S a spacious stony ridge leads on to Aran Fawddwy giving glimpses of Cader Idris, the Tarren and Dovey hills, and Plynlimon. The ridge is a grand walk, nowhere difficult and de rigueur if you have got this far. Never dropping below 2700ft and graced with tiny tarns, it conveys an infectious ‘top-of-the-world’ feeling similar to the Glyders, despite the difference in scale.
Warning Beware the E face of Aran Benllyn. Stick to the ridge in mist. There are spectacular lunch spots in the rocks above the cliffs, but seeking these in thick weather would be unwise.
N ridge (AN1)
Pont y Pandy (880298) is the jumping-off point. A footpath sign indicates the way down a farm lane. After 0.5 mile a bridleway sign directs you up rich green slopes to the ridge. Should you miss this, wait until you pass a cottage, Garth Uchaf, when you can clamber up to the ridge beside a dilapidated wall just beyond. Once atop the ridge a well-trodden path follows a fence in a series of giant steps. Stiles and arrows on rocks are there in abundance to discourage any straying. The views mature with every step. Benllyn's rocky pyramid looms impressively ahead, while if you divert L you will have a rare chance to observe Llyn Lliwbran slumbering in its cold, silent hollow far below.
Aran Benllyn across Lake Bala (AN1)
A short sharp rise brings you to the shores of Llyn Pen Aran and its tiny acolyte, idyllic on a calm sunny day when the only sound is the gentle lapping of waves, but unfortunately often whipped up by scurrying winds. Soon after this the path abandons the faithful fence, veering L to climb the final bouldery pile on its own.
Llyn Lliwbran route (AN2)
The N ridge can be combined with Llyn Lliwbran, one of the most inhospitable lakes in Wales. Walk down the road that penetrates Cwm Croes from 895270. Shortly before Nant-y-Llyn Farm cut across the fells for 0.5 mile of trackless, tussocky bog to reach the lake. When you have had your fill of the austere beauty of this desolate sun-starved hollow, head N until the slopes ease. Steep screes and cliffs rule out a direct pull up to the ridge from the lake.
Creiglyn Dyfi route (AN3)
The Cwm Croes road continues to the head of Cwm Llwydd (though it is not marked on the map) whereupon a grassy trail continues to the shores of Creiglyn Dyfi. The backdrop to the cradle of the famous Dovey could scarcely be more thrilling as the shattered face of Aran Fawddwy soars aloft in an angry intrigue of buttresses, gullies and terraces. Yet the lake itself seems strangely lacklustre from this viewpoint – too open, too square – and it is only from the nearby Drysgol ridge that it begins to take on the romantic aura its name leads you to expect.
Cwm Cywarch (AN5)
The key to the ascent is the grassy nose that slopes down from Erw y Ddafad-ddu. This provides a quick way home for tired legs in the evening, raises quite a sweat in summer (there is nearly 900ft of it) and needs care in winter. Snow gives it a wicked innocence – witness the crags that buttress it N and E. Once up, you are virtually midway between Benllyn and Fawddwy.
Llaethnant route (AN4)
Instead of plodding up Cwm Llwydd you could leave the road to climb via the shoulder of Foel Hafod-fynydd, with splendid views all the way (AN3,1).
The Llaethnant Valley walk, starting from the gate at the bend in the road at 905212, used to be a real charmer. However, on returning to it recently after a break of some years I was disappointed to find that the green path of old had given way to an ugly, grey, bulldozed road. It is still a beautiful walk, though sadly something irreplaceable has been lost. It begins in great style, hugging the slopes beneath the poetically named crags of Nyth-yr-eryr (nest of the eagle), and soon leaving the vivacious stream tumbling from chasm to chasm in its tiny gorge far below. Across the valley the hillside is fringed with crags and dappled with trees and gives a dazzling blaze of greys, greens and coppery reds when the bracken is at its height.
A steepish rise brings you alongside the stream with bleaker, more open terrain ahead. Unfortunately the grassy mound of Foel Hafod-fynydd shuts out all but the most tantalising glimpses of the high Arans beyond. The track starts to veer N now, and if you stayed with it would take you across Bwlch Sirddyn to Cwm Croes via the abandoned farmstead of Cwm-fynnon (883243). (On grit all the way apart from a sketchy patch over the Bwlch – see AN19.) However, for today's walk you should leave the track now for one of the oozy little trails that wend across the S flanks of Hafod to Creiglyn Dyfi, before pulling up to Erw y Ddafad-ddu to finish as in AN3.
Aran Fawddwy
It is a moot point whether Benllyn or Fawddwy is the finer viewpoint. Rather like Mahler and Bruckner, it all depends on your mood. Fawddwy frames Creiglyn Dyfi, the birthplace of the Dovey, in its giant turrets; but otherwise there is precious little in it. Benllyn, with its focus on the rugged wilder N, plays King to Fawddwy's Queen and the softer hills of the S. Happily both peaks have the gift – shared by so many of the mid-Wales hills – of transporting you into a world where the works of man are subsumed in a blue-green fantasy of hills, woodlands and dales extending as far as the eye can see.
Cwm Cywarch route (AN5)
Driving up the twisty road to Cwm Cywarch the urge to get out of the car and onto the fells is almost irresistible. The sight of that familiar cirque with its massive buttressed crags piercing the sky is an inspiration, even to the most indolent. Park in the field where the unfenced road ends at 854185. March on, ignoring the footpath sign to Hengwm, past the farmstead of Blaencywarch, over a ford and up a springy band of green that cuts through bracken and boulders. (Many signs and arrows on rocks render detailed directions superfluous.) Before long you are hemmed in by lowering crags, serenaded by the music of the brook and marvelling at having climbed so quickly out of the lush pastures below.
The head of Cwm Cywarch
Unless you want some awkward scrambling be sure to spot (near the top) where the path crosses to the stream's true L bank. Once across, the path fades and the best plan is to head slightly E of N until you meet a fence with a well-trodden path alongside. This is a squelchy, oozy mess at first (long white planks have recently been laid over the worst sections) but it firms up later as it winds up the mountain's bouldery slopes to a large cairn marking the S top (860220). The trig point is then a short walk NE across a stony plateau. Shortly before meeting another fence coming off the hillside R, pass a junction of fences (851208), a much-needed clue to the whereabouts of Waen Camddwr, some 150yd S.
Cwm Hengwm route (AN6)
Hengwm is the most popular route up Aran Fawddwy.
My advice for the perfect day would be out via Cwm Cywarch, home down Hengwm when the long slopes that can seem endless on a muggy morning are perfect for a relaxed afternoon.
Craig Cywarch
A footpath sign at 853187 directs you across a bridge, through a rickety kissing-gate and up a rough muddy track beneath a canopy of trees. Turn L when you meet a gravelly farm road and in a few minutes join the long, carefully graded path that slants across the N flanks of Pen yr Allt-uchaf. The trough of Hengwm deepens with every step. Colossal green slopes, smooth and bare, gaze silently down on an empty cwm that curls round as if to feed on its own monumental loneliness.
Above Hengwm the path toils up to the Drysgol spur and a teardrop tarn where, on a still day, you may glimpse the Aran tops reflected