• Location
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• Introduction
• Sample Route
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WALK 20

The Nantlle Ridge

In the whole of North Wales, the Nantlle ridge is surpassed in unadulterated ridge-walking pleasure by only the Snowdon Horseshoe. The dubious talisman of height gives Snowdon a degree of magnetism, but for superb walking without the drama and the crowds, nothing beats the Nantlle ridge. Of course, being a linear walk, you have to resolve the logistics of getting back to the start, if such is your need, , although an enthralling day can be made of a walk just as far as Mynydd Tal y Mignedd, and then walking back.

Route information

Distance     13km/8 miles
Height gain     1025m/3360ft
Time     5–6 hours
Grade     energetic
Start point     SH571526

Getting there
Car park a little south of Rhyd Ddu village on the A4085 Beddgelert–Caernarfon road at the South Snowdon Station of the Welsh Highland Railway

Maps
(Ordnance Survey) OL17 Snowdon/Yr Wyddfa

After-walk refreshment
Ty Mawr tea room and the Cwellyn Arms pub in Rhyd Ddu; pubs and cafés in Beddgelert

The Route

Directly opposite the car park, a gate gives access to a slate path across a field, leading to a stream flowing from Llyn y Gader. On reaching the stream, follow path to footbridge, and then a stile, beyond which you reach the access road to a cottage, Tal y Llyn. Cross this access and take to a narrow path through rushes and across rough pasture until you rejoin the access and can follow it out to the B4418. Here, immediately turn left through a gate and take a footpath to another gate from where the ascent begins in earnest.

The way on to Y Garn, and the start of the ridge, is clear enough, a steeply rising path gouged into slatey runnels in places. Higher up, the path leads to a ladder/stile over a wall, beyond which you soon reach the top of Y Garn. The hard work is rewarded by a dramatic view of the cliffs of Craig y Bera on the southern slopes of Mynydd Mawr, and of the lush pastures of the Nantlle valley below. In fact, images of Mynydd Mawr and its crags feature throughout most of the walk, beckoning impatiently as if to say ‘You should be over here, not over there.’

The continuation to Mynydd Drws y Coed, of which Y Garn is simply a northerly extension, soon turns from grass to rock, becoming steep and narrow in places, but is nowhere unduly difficult, though hands will be needed for balance in a few places. The summit of Mynydd Drws y Coed is a grassy elevation only marginally higher than surrounding rocks, and lies just a few strides south of a stile crossing a fence. The mountain takes its name from the farm below.

Across a vast cwm lies the next summit, Trum y Ddysgl, the ‘Ridge of the Dish’, and takes its name from the shape of its northern cliffs when viewed from the valley. The mountain has outstanding structure, possessing two fine arêtes, glacial cwms and an abundance of rock. The summit, a delightful, elongated grassy ridge, breezy and exhilarating, is reached easily from Mynydd Drws y Coed. On the way the path divides, with the lower route taking a slightly easier option to the ridge. Walk along the ridge, following a grassy path to locate a narrow grassy connection to the next summit, Mynydd Tal y Mignedd. Land falls away in all directions, and makes Trum y Ddysgl quite a special place.

After the descent from Trum y Ddysgl and the crossing of a narrow neck of land, the climb to Mynydd Tal y Mignedd presents no difficulty. But the top of the mountain comes as something of a surprise. Here, a towering chimney-like obelisk contrives to look both inspiring and out of place. It was constructed as a tribute to the quarrymen who built it during Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee year.

To the south-west of Mynydd Tal y Mignedd lies Bwlch Dros Bern, thought to be an old drove road from Cwm Pennant to Nantlle, by which route the Pennant shepherds took their sheep to the market in Caernarfon, although it is difficult to find traces of the cross-route these days. The descent to the pass is at first in a southerly direction, by the line of a fence, and then south-west.

Bwlch Dros Bern seems to mark a change in character: to the east, the four summits are narrow and twisting, and mostly grassy, while to the west, the remaining three summits are broader, more rocky and less serpentine.

From the pass there is a rocky ascent to the wider summit of Craig Cwm Silyn at the centre of the ridge, its summit lost in a rash of boulders, and the highest point of the Nantlle ridge.

The continuation westwards to Garnedd Goch is a straightforward walk, a diversion from which, to the northern edge of Craig Cwm Silyn, will reveal the Great Slab, a popular playground with rock climbers, poised above the twin turquoise lakes in Cwm Silyn below. Onward, the route soon joins a stone wall leading to the summit of Garnedd Goch.

The final summit along the ridge is Mynydd Craig Goch, a weird place of castellated and gnarled rocks overlooking the sea and the Lleyn peninsula. In 2008, Mynydd Craig Goch came of age, when, following resurveying, it was proven that the mountain achieved a height of 609.75m, and so exceeded, by 0.49 feet, the long-held criterion for status as a mountain – 2000 feet!

To reach Mynydd Craig Goch, the ‘new’ Welsh mountain, from Garnedd Goch, descend steeply by a wall until you can conveniently cross it, and then follow another wall to the col between the two mountains, Bwlch Cwmdulyn. The continuation from the bwlch is not direct, and heads first in a southerly direction before taking to gently rising ground westwards.

From the summit, descend in a north-westerly direction to the outflow of Llyn Cwm Dulyn, and then by lanes to Nebo, or wherever you are being picked up. Possibly easier would be to backtrack to Bwlch Cwmdulyn and follow a path across the western flank of Garnedd Goch down towards Cors y Llyn, and so to Nebo.