Pete's Eats - The well known walker's and climber's caff in Llanberis.

Weather Links

MWIS. Weather forecast for Snowdonia.

Met Office. 5 day mountain forecast.

Snowdonia Snowline - Daily record of the Carneddau Snowline.

Metcheck weather - Longer range forecasts.

Advertise your Snowdonia Business here! Email for info.

Accuweather

Snowdon Weather Station Project. Weather data and Webcams of Elidir Fawr and Moel Eilio.

Snowdon Sherpa Bus Timetables

Welsh Highland Railway.

Travelline Wales.

theTrainline - Timetables and online booking

The Welsh 3000s - website just about the 14 peaks.

The BMC - British Mountaineering Council.

The Mountain Bothy Association - yes, there are bothies in Eryri...

TAC - The Angry Corrie Scottish hillwalking fanzine, read it free.

Eryri - Snowdonia National Park.

Oggy Cam . Ogwen Mountain Rescue and a Ogwen Valley webcam.

BBC North West Wales.

Graham's Wales Photos. Loads of excellent pics on Eryri in here.

North Wales Photographs Beautiful photos of North Wales by Simon Kitchin.

Cambrian Mountains National Park A 'Should-Be' fourth welsh national park.

Snowdonia Society Charity which looks after the interests onf the National Park.

eryriway.org.uk Sister site to walkeryri, emphasising long distance trails.

South Ridge from Rhyd Ddu.
Distance and Ascent 12.5km, 950m ascent OS Map Required OS Explorer 17 Landranger 150 Time 5.5 hours. Difficulties Exposure on Bwlch Main and worse if windy. Start Location Rhyd Ddu End Location As start. Grading Hard Facilities Parking, cafe and pub. Public Transport Sherpas and WHR to Rhyd Ddu GPS Files

You can't beat an after work walk. Even better when you can make it a proper mountain walk rather than the low level walks I was doing last year. The best one I managed was a walk from Caernarfon via the Afon Gwyrfai and Waunfawr to Cefn Du and Llanberis - recently resurrected and the circuit of Llyn Padarn added. It’s made even better if you have time to summit Moel Eilio in what is essentially a sea level ascent, not many of those in Snowdonia.

If you can get the act together and manage a proper mountain then it's a further bonus. Last year Yr Aran was the prize for rushing from work and restarting a body that was set to relax for the evening. Make Yr Wyddfa that mountain and they don't come any better. It's a freeby. It's one stolen back by the worker. A full day off's worth of walking and I don't have to ring in a sicky or use up a holiday (not that I can anyway). I feel like Citizen Smith! Power to the after work hill walker!

By far the most versatile spot in Snowdonia for a walk is Rhyd Ddu, especially after work. Future targets from here will be the Nantlle Ridge and Mynydd Mawr. Today, as I’ve already said, was Yr Wyddfa, by the South Ridge, which I haven’t.

The path itself is easy to find, by passing the WHR platform to the end and crossing the railway at the gates. The path meanders, about for a while at an easy gradient and has an easy surface – none of those large paving slabs here. This old quarry track eventually takes you to a junction that points left to Snowdon, but the south ridge is attained by plodding on forward – no doubt to the shouts of “You’re going the wrong way!!”

The quarry track continues resolutely onwards, reaching old quarries and spoil before Bwlch Cwm Llan signals the arrival of real mountain scenery and the steepening of the path. The first section is straight up on stone steps, which are a shock to the system but at least get you high quickly. And much in this manner the South Ridge continues upwards, in stops and starts, a couple of little scrambles, a couple of places where you could lose the path but not quite. The final section is very steep, and slightly eroded, but you’d be forgiven for thinking you weren’t on Snowdon as you climb up to Bwlch Main.

The intention was to take some photos of the sunset, or to merely look at it from the top. Typically, the summit, and only the summit was in cloud. I was accepting that it would be so, until upon reaching Bwlch Main the summit cleared. So close. The skeletal structure of the new Snowdon 'Caff' was visible and some lucky soul was up there already.. Despite what media hype wants to call it, the most important features for the average user will be what drink/cake can i buy and has it got a toilet, in other words  - Caff. I seriously worry when people want to arrive at the top of Yr Wyddfa and then spend their time in an exhibition, someone somewhere doesn’t quite get the mountain experience. The idea of a ‘caff’ is OK, I’d rather it wasn’t there at all, but it is, and a better looking building can only enhance the scarred summit. But woe to them if they still intend to serve us mere walkers only by hatch, seeing as we only walked up as we couldn’t afford the train, obviously.

Of course, as we crossed the narrow Bwlch Main, the cloud came in as thick and fast as ever and that's the last we saw of it. At the summit, which I’d last seen as quiet in a rainstorm midweek in December, in the encompassing mist we thought we could hear voices. Upon listening intently, I decided it was my imagination making up what it thought I should be hearing here normally. But sure enough, there was a group, probably DofE or similar, making for the summit. We greeted each one, and had a bit of a joke with the leader, but they appeared under prepared for being up at this time of night (as in no packs and possibly no torch?). They were probably camping at the tents we'd seen as a nameless tarn down below. This is definitely on the list for a Friday night camp pretty soon, especially after I saw the aspect it had this time of day.

Not to be swindled from some after work fun, we were treated to the spectacle of Brocken Spectres on the descent across Bwlch Main. Not just once, but for all the traverse of Bwlch Main our bodies cast shadows that only we could see on the cloud above Cwm Llan. The photo does it no credit. The light in general was very good for photos, and with the swirling cloud made for some striking views on the descent. We turned right at the end of Bwlch Main and followed the Rhyd Ddu path down, deciding that parts of the South Ridge might be a bit more difficult underfoot than we wanted on a Thursday night once it got dark. The Rhyd Ddu path is easy to follow, with cairns at regular intervals, but is a bit eroded in places making it hard going on a fast descent like tonight.

Eventually, the path levels out and narrows to a person’s width, which was welcome on the feet tonight – normally I’d have stopped to cool them but time was against us. It was already difficult to see where we were putting out feet, so we had to keep plodding on. We arrived at Rhyd Ddu in darkness, but as the path was good for the last stretch we made use of our developing night vision. When you consider the peace and quiet, the quality of the light and the general experience of it,  I'll definitely be doing this again very soon.

General Links

Snowdonia attractions Several great reviews about some of Snowdonia's better known attractions. 

English-welsh dictionary Links and resources to help you translate that welsh word into English.

Walking shoes - Another site that I found that sells walking shoes online.

Merrell Walking Shoes from fitnessfootwear.com, decent little site i found for Merrell walking shoes.

Whalley Warm and Dry - paramo stockists, great service and range.

V-G Walking and Backpacking. Inspirational website detailing one to three (and more) day walks around the UK.

Trekking Britain. Route descriptions & experience as opposed to guide book.

OutdoorsMagic - Forum based website, lots of information on here.

Phil George - Mountain Leader Training in Llanberis.

Peak and Fell Walking - A photographic guide to walking in Britain's National Parks.

Wild Tramp.co.uk - New site on walking in the UK. Looks promising.

Tracklogs IMHO the best mapping for PC.

MemoryMap Still good, but route handling clumsier.

Viewranger mapping for smartphones.

Fugawi and Anquet are also popular.

Quo The new kid on the block.

Open Street Map - Open source mapping as featured on this site.

Multimap - Free online mapping.

Get a Map - Free online mapping from the OS

Access Land in Wales - online mapping from CCW.