Hillwalking in Wales - Vol 2. Peter Hermon

can also reach the grassy saddle from Bochlwyd by following GL36 until you can exploit a gap in the crags (GL38,2).

Cwm Tryfan/S ridge (GL39)

      This lonely cwm has the freshness and serenity Tryfan is so often denied.

      Cwm Tryfan lacks nothing in grandeur, cupped between the terraced outcrops of Braich y Ddeugwm and Tryfan’s kingly spires. Nowhere is the triple crown more splendidly revealed, and when a powdering of snow dusts the tops the effect is truly magical.

      Start along GL35 (the Heather Terrace route) but break away S, keeping little Tryfan on your L, until you meet the wire fence that straddles the fells from W to E. At least five stiles cross this fence. The one you want is the highest, a new ladder-stile at 671599, so plod up alongside the fence to the crest and then cross over. The path appears at once, white and stony, keeping well to the W of the stream and heading for drier ground.

      The shortest ‘route’ (GL39,1) is to grunt and groan up scree to the col below the S ridge. Feasible, but trackless and definitely not recommended. It is much better to imbibe the wild flavour of the cwm for as long as you can by staying with it until you meet the miners’ track at 666584 (GL39,2). Best of all – a compromise – is to look out for a sketchy path that wends away R where the track crosses the stream at 667588. This swathes through rampant heather to Bwlch Tryfan and GL37.

      High-level Walks