Hiking the Land that Inspired Tolkien
The Great Orme, Snowdon, and other bits from treks in Snowdonia
Greetings from Bilbao. More to come from our time in Liverpool, Manchester, and here once we settle in San Sebastian in a few days. In the meantime, here’s our last post about our activities in the North of Wales (one more UK gastronomy post is still to come).
While Great Britain may be better known for its quaint towns than its dramatic landscapes, we endeavored to find the best of the landscapes on offer over a few days of hiking while we were in northern Wales.
The Great Orme
The most distinctive topographical features of the tourist town of Llandudno are the two Ormes1, mountainous rocky headlands that punctuate both ends of the waterfront promenade. The Great Orme lies north and west of the town, while the Little Orme is to the east.
Since the Great Orme is accessible from the town itself, Gelsey and I picked a day when the weather was nice to catch the bus to Llandudno and hike to the top. There actually looked to be a lovely hike that wouldn’t ascend to the top but went the full way around the Orme, but I was stubborn in my insistence that we hike to the top.
As it turned out, we got a bit lost trying to find the hike’s starting path. The materials we previewed online made it sound exceptionally straightforward. All the trails leave from one point and there are three main routes. Well, we never found that point. But, it being a big hulking mountain unmissable in that direction over there, we simply set out on some trails assuming that it would be obvious.
Obvious it was not, but we eventually found a path that said “Summit” with an arrow. Perhaps a different O-adjective would be better: ominous. The path was called “The Zig Zag Trail” and the arrow pointed pretty much straight up Orme. The next 30 minutes was straight up—I kid you not—20 straight switchbacks2.
After the switchbacks, the trail turned left and ran along the gradient maybe about halfway up the slope on the western side of the Orme. This afforded us lovely views across the bay toward island of Anglesey.
But being on the west side of the Orme also exposed us to strong winds, which is likely why there is little significant vegetation here. The wind made the hiking difficult, so although it was now flatter, it didn’t feel much easier.
After another switchback, there was one more long (straight, this time) ascent, and we were basically on the top part of the Orme. Here, we encountered wonderful fields full of Western Gorse and Bell Heather and found several members of the herd of feral cashmere goats. (You may be familiar with this herd of goats since they made global news during the early days of the pandemic with a viral video having taken over the town of Llandudno.)
After we crossed through a few such fields (only one of which had goats), we found ourselves by the main road (and railroad tracks) up to the summit. From here it was just a short walk up to the pinnacle.
We took a different route back to town that was a bit easier going (minus one descent so steep we had trouble finding where it went down over the edge). The only downside of our way back was a wicked fight I had with a bee. It won the battle, but I won the war. (NB: Assuming it lives on the Orme, this may technically be inaccurate, as it still lives on the Orme and I fled to the faraway—to the bee—land of Colwyn Bay).
Aber Falls
For a few days, Gelsey and I rented a car to explore different parts of Snowdonia National Park. Snowdonia is a large mountainous expanse in the northwest corner of mainland Wales. Though it doesn’t reach the sea (up here – it does further south), it sits just inland from the north and west coasts.
Our first stop was a waterfall called Aber Falls, where we were almost thwarted by an obstinate pay-and-display machine. Parking cost 5 pounds and the machine took only 1-pound and 50-pence coins; we had only 2 pounds in coins and 20-pound notes. Thankfully, some kind woman offered us five extra pounds of change she had (we gave her a “fiver”), and we were able to get around the pay-and-display machine’s attempts to spoil our day.
Gelsey had read online that this was an accessible path, and I had parked next to a handicapped parking space. So it was to our immense surprise that within about 20 paces, we were on a reasonably steep slope, stepping over tree routes and around large rocks that encroached on the path. I’m not sure whom the “accessible” tag was meant for, but it sure wasn’t the pictogrammed person in wheelchair on the signs. The hike continued to be a bit harder than we expected; it was reasonably steep in parts, but after the first 300 meters or so, we joined up with what felt like a more major path that was mostly gravel.
Nonetheless, it wasn’t too long a hike (only, it says, about 1.2 miles from the carpark), and as we crested the last rise, we got a full view of a spectacular waterfall. Rhaeadr Fawr (I’ve got no idea; ask Gelsey how to pronounce it), to give it its Welsh name, cascades down roughly 120 feet of nearly sheer igneous rock.
We had packed a picnic lunch, and we opted for a few boulders overlooking the very small pool at the base of the waterfall for our lunch table.
We probably managed the route back to the car in about half the time and we were soon off to our next destination…
Cwm Idwyl
Pronounced something like ‘Coom eed-wahl’, this interesting feature of the Snowdonia landscape has a difficult-for-this-non-geologist-to-understand geological history: igneous and sedimentary rock, folded, then eroded by a glacier. The result is a semi-circular nearly bald rock face with a lake at its base.
The lake is about 500 feet of elevation above the parking lot, so we had another upwards hike. This would prove good preparation for the following day. But having already done one moderate hike, we were feeling it a little bit as we made our way up. Some sections were somewhat steep, but it was mostly a moderate incline that afforded beautiful views of the valley below.
There were a decent number of people on the trail (the parking lot was actually totally full), but by the time we got up to the lake, people were plenty spread out and we got a spot of lakeshore to ourselves.
Rather than circumnavigate the lake (the recommended route), I noticed a smaller trail leading up a short distance (no more than another half-mile) to a ridge that I thought would have a nice panorama back of a different valley. So we made our way up there, and I was right!
Panoramic photos of more than about 90 degrees don’t tend to come out that well, but I wanted to include it anyway just to try to give a sense of how many different gorgeous views there were.
Snowdon
Yr Wyddfa, to give it its Welsh name, rises 3560 feet into the sky. It is the 3rd highest (by prominence3[3]) mountain in the UK, and the highest in England or Wales. As we drove around the park the day before and as we drove to Caernarfon and around Anglesey the following day, its peak was often in the clouds.
But we timed our hike to coincide with the best weather across the three days, and we couldn’t have asked for better conditions: at the base it was mostly sunny with a light breeze and a temperature in the high 60s or low 70s. Truly perfect conditions.
Picking the right route of ascent is more work than you might imagine simply because there are so many different routes up to the top. We ruled out some of the harder routes—these often involved over 3,000 feet of vertical distance—and opted instead to turn the hike into a loop walk from Pen-y-Pass, a pass to the east of Snowdon.
Arriving to this pass itself was a bit of an adventure. There’s only a small parking lot there, and you have to reserve your spot in advance. The reservation required a license plate, which we didn’t know in time to reserve, so this meant parking at a park-and-ride parking lot down the hill from Pen-y-Pass and getting a bus up to the parking lot. Yes, we parked at a park-and-ride to get a bus to a different parking lot, which was, itself, the trailhead.
The two routes leave from different sides of the parking lot, and we opted for the Pyg Path, which is a bit shorter, and has a more consistent gradient. The Miners’ Path (the other on offer from Pen-y-Pass) is flatter for longer, but then makes most of the ascent all at the end. Choosing the Pyg Path was definitely the right call.
For the first part of our ascent, we had views back down into the valley in which we had just parked. The mountains across the valley were purple with heather, and I kept snapping photos of the tall mountain up ahead, which I was convinced was our destination. I was very wrong.
Eventually, we crossed over a ridge line where we had a view down to the Miners’ Path along the lakes below. I think we were both slightly incredulous at how little climbing that path had done by this point. But we also now got a view of our destination for the first time. And it was much higher (and farther) than the peak I had thought we were hiking to.
Up until this point, the trail had been steadily uphill, often clambering over rocks that had been set out to form the trail. Now, we got some segments of reprieve from the ascent. There were still steep sections, but these were mixed with some flatter bits, as we made our way closer to Snowdon. Although we felt better about our current path, we felt worse about what was to come, because we could now see the final ascent up to the top, and it looked merciless.
Eventually, we were joined by the Miners’ Path, which had just made a ferociously steep ascent from the lake below, and at this point, both paths together pitched up at an extremely steep gradient. From here to the ridge at the summit, only about half was “walkable” with the other half requiring careful foot placement to get up over large bits of rock. And even the walkable parts were sometimes effectively stairs.
After pausing several times along this final section to catch our breath, we finally made it to the top ridge, where we met the longer (but flatter) route from Llanberis that runs along the train tracks (yes, you can take a train to the top, though it is not presently operational). The views were spectacular, and we now also got them to the north.
We had eaten much of our picnic lunch already, but we stopped to finish most of it here. At this point, however, the temperature had dropped significantly, the wind had picked up, and it was no longer sunny. Even with all our layers, we were getting a bit chilly.
After resting and eating, we made the final ascent up to the top. There was a queue to take a picture of the plaque atop Snowdon, and after waiting for about 10-15 minutes and making only minimal progress, we decided to hike to the base of the stairs up to the platform at the top. Here, we could also get a bit of protection from the wind.
I love mountains, as you probably gathered from my posts from Canada, and I expected to love this view. But I didn’t expect to love it this much. The scale of these mountains and this peak in particular just hadn’t registered with me in advance. And the result was that I was totally captivated. It’s one of the best hikes I’ve ever done. Extremely hard (and more difficulty was to come), but just absolutely worth it.
From here, we began the descent. Back to the turnoff for the two routes to Pen-y-Pass. Back down the shared very steep section to the fork. We were surprised by how hard this wasn’t on the descent. Given how challenging the ascent was, I was a bit worried the descent might take longer, but it honestly wasn’t so bad. Then we took the fork for the Miners’ Path on the way back, which involved continuing the steep descent until we got to the (first of the) lakeshore(s).
While we had covered a majority of the vertical distance, we had covered barely a third of the horizontal distance, so from here it felt like a long trek back to the parking lot. But by now, the sun was a bit lower in the sky, the light was yellower, the shadows were longer, and this gave everything a special glow. I imagine it would have been even nicer at sunset, but we weren’t waiting to get back to the car and sit down. We did see some goats along the way, though! (There were sheep everywhere.)
6.5 hours; 7.5 miles; 2400 feet of net elevation gain to the summit. This was a hard day’s work.
The word ‘orme’ is, according to a minimum amount of research, of Norse derivation and refers to a ‘worm’ or ‘sea serpent’.
There were six more switchbacks spaced farther apart farther up the mountain for a total of 26.
For the uninitiated, as I was prior to writing this, prominence, as it sounds, references how far a mountain emerges from the area around it. I won’t bore you with technical details about the distance a ridge line must descend before ascending back up to be a technically different peak, and about the other categories of measuring mountainous bigness, but suffice it to say Snowdon is large.