Cnicht – Croesor to Llyn Dinas

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Cnicht – Croesor to Llyn Dinas

Tuesday 03 April 2012

Today was the first of our three walks and we were heading to Cnicht. I had never heard of this mountain and didn’t have a clue where it was located. Not far from Beddgelert as it turns out!

A coach picked nine of us up from the gates of Craflwyn Hall and took us up the very narrow road to a village called Croesor. There were times when I thought the coach was going to get stuck as it only had inches to spare on each side and we were very lucky that we did not meet any traffic coming the other way!

At the top of the narrow lane, and after the driver had completed a 56 point turn using someone’s driveway, we stepped off of the coach and into the rain. To the North East, we could see Cnicht draped in the misty cloud.

We followed the road for a few meters until it became a track and then turned right on to the path to Cnicht. At 200 meters we had nearly 500 meters to gain to reach the summit of Cnicht which the map showed to be 689 meters. We could not see the summit and had only the occasional glimpse of what looked more like the shadow of the smaller summit directly in front of the proper summit.

We eventually reached a wall with a style. Up until now,

the walking had been an easy gradient but from here we could see much steeper slopes ahead. The rain continued.

The higher we climbed the colder it got (surprise!) and by the time we reached the rock face in the photo below the wind had really picked up and the wind chill had taken the temperature well below freezing. It was here that we realised that we would have to scramble that last 50 meters or so. I had to take my gloves off to collapse my trekking poles and it didn’t take long for my fingers to feel the bite of the chill.

My summit pictures were a little rubbish with the picture below being the best. Those dark shadows on the photo are in fact very large raindrops hurled at the lens by a very cold wind. You will notice from the photo that we had no view from the summit.

We only spent a few minutes on the summit and then dropped down to a flat spot near Foel Boethwel for our packed lunch. The rain had eased a little and we were sheltered from the wind but it still didn’t take long before we started to feel cold once we had stopped moving.

A quick lunch was followed with a trek down to Llyn yr Adar which, for the most part, was covered by cloud and only started to become visible once we had reached the northern end.

We continued along the path towards Llynnau’r Cwn passing above Llyn Llagi where I took the photo below.

Once we had reached Llynnau’r Cwn we had a steep and slippery descent of almost 200 meters. I took this second photo of Llyn Llagi on the way down.

We were still making our way down the path when the rain stopped and the clouds disappeared. I am not sure where they went because I had been busy trying to get down Llynnau’r Cwn in one piece but somewhere between the top and the bottom the clouds above us had vanished and for the first time on the walk we had a bit of a view.

I can’t be sure but I think the photo below shows Moel Hebog on the left and Yr Aran on the right with Llyn Dinas just right of centre.

We passed an old barn and then stopped for a quick snack admiring the recently gained views. When we resumed we made a slight detour away from the main path and followed a much narrower path along a stream and past some small waterfalls.

We eventually came across some sort of sheep dip enclosure and used this to join up with the main path again before crossing the Blaen Nanmor pass and eventually arriving at a little white cottage called Hafod Owen Cottage. I took this photo just before we reached the cottage looking back across the land we had just covered and Foel Boethwel in the background.

By the time we had walked form Hafod Owen and through the small wood the clouds had returned and so had the rain which stayed with us until we reached Craflwyn Hall.

David Welch – View Profile

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