The Cambrian Way: Eyri / Snowdonia – Barmouth to Conwy. 17-22 April 2025
I’d done quite a lot of micro-adventuring recently and was yearning for something a bit chunkier. After getting a taste of Snowdonia over O’s birthday I realised that this was a massive outage in places I’d spent time in the UK and wanted to explore more. I’d also never actually been up Snowdon. Time to rectify!
With the long Easter weekend approaching it seemed like the perfect excuse to get away for longer. I settled on trekking the Cambrian Way from Barmouth to Conwy. At 118km it seemed an achievable length over 4 and a bit days, and also meant that transport to and from London wasn’t too arduous (I’d have dearly loved to start the route a bit earlier to get Cadair Idris in as well, but the extra complexities on travel and increased length meant that I’d have needed an extra day).
The Cambrian Way is a route that runs the entire length of Wales, from Cardiff in the South to Conwy in the North. Despite following many of the old Stone and Bronze age trails it’s a relatively recently recognised ‘official’ route, championed by The Ramblers Association in the 1960s, and particularly by a guy called Tony Drake who spent around a decade working out the route and presented the initial plan for it in 1971. It’s now marked on OS Maps, and signposted (in lowland areas) with a Welsh hat symbol, which I didn’t know was a thing, but Wikipedia informs me is the ‘image of a happy, hearty, healthy, hard-working Welsh woman’
Day 1: Thursday
I set off early from London and arrived in Barmouth around lunchtime. Barmouth is a weird town. Totally surrounded by absolute beauty; the mountains and the sea. But full of people on mobility scooters drinking cider. However you get your kicks I suppose? But I quickly got out of there, and once I started climbing a hill I felt safe that none of them would/could come after me!
It was an absolutely stunning day and a total joy to be out in it. And very quickly the scenery became pretty exquisite.
I’d roughly planned my route, including potential campsites, through to Monday when I planned to treat myself to a bunk, shower and breakfast at the YHA in Conwy before heading back on Tuesday morning. However pretty early on there were indications that my planning had been a bit overambitious: the climbing in the Welsh mountains can be pretty aggressive, and I was really feeling the weight of a five day pack pretty soon. Still, I was happy, optimistic, and just kept plodding.
And with views like this it’s tough to be in anything other than a joyous mood (the big ridged mountain in the distance is Cadair Idris – I was a bit gutted that I’d missed it this time. A good excuse to go back though!)
After a few hours I stopped for a late lunch, got the feet out, and pondered why these trees were growing like a QR code on the side of the mountain.
Here’s a more immersive experience of my lunch stop, to truly bring it to life:
Then it was onwards and upwards. There were a couple of peaks before finding a spot to bed down. My favourite was Diffwys, at 750m. Here’s me being silly at the top.
Here’s me trying to look cool at the trig point:
And here’s a video of me trying to be silly, but then getting a bit too awed by the landscape to properly style it out.
There was more stunning walking, and then the sun decided to make it even more beautiful by bathing the landscape in gold as it started descending. I decided not to try to attempt the Rhinog mountains in the dusk on my first day out, so found myself a little spot by Llyn Hywel just at the foot of Rhinog Fach.
It was a bit of a scramble down, and a good introductory lesson that nearly everywhere that looks potentially campable in Snowdonia on a map, and from a distance, is actually marshland. As I got increasingly desperate, I even tried to use some common sense, figuring that if I went a bit higher and looked for a slight slope, then surely the excess water would have run down to lower areas. This turned out to be a false assumption. This continued to baffle me a little, so I did some post trek Peatland Hydrology research as to why. It turns out that there’s actually a scientific law to explain this:
“Darcy’s law suggests that water flows through a unit area of wet peat will be determined primarily by the combination of hydraulic conductivity of the material (K, expressed as a speed of transmission of water through the material) and the hydraulic gradient (fall in height over horizontal distance travelled). Bogs remain wet because peat generally has low hydraulic conductivities, retaining water even when there is a relatively high hydraulic gradient.”
In fact, water only moves in the range of mm or cm a day apparently. And it all sits on the surface because the peat is sat on top of impermeable rock. And the presence of cotton grass and sphagnum (mosses) in the bog slows it down even more.
Here’s a couple of diagrams that basically show that until the peat is fully saturated, water doesn’t really start running off it.
And then this diagram is really supposed to show the effects of erosion on water run-off from peatland, but the key point for me as to why I kept struggling to find somewhere to pitch my tent, is that the vegetation in the Acrotelm section basically just sucks up any available water and holds onto it, until it reaches saturation point and only then allows run-off. Hence wet marsh even on sloped higher ground.
But I digress..
Short story, I found a spot to camp at last. It was stunning. I made some food using my snazzy new camping stove (MSR Pocket Rocket Deluxe baby – so much faster, lighter and easier than my old Trangia!) And I put my head down to sleep…
Day 2: Friday
…And I slept a bit. Fitfully. First night in a tent in the mountains and all that. It’s never the warmest, or most comfortable when you’ve been used to a bed and central heating…
…Until the sun rose, warmed the tent up, and I foolishly convinced myself that I’d just shut my eyes and rest a little longer until my body warmed up enough to face the day…
Cut to 11am. I wake up, look at the time, swear quite loudly. Then I realise it’s raining and am even less happy.
Now listen, I love wildcamping. I love the flexibility of being able to find a spot and settle in for the night wherever and whenever I fancy on a walk. I love the independence. I love the solitude and knowing that there’s no-one around for miles. I love the secrecy of it. I love watching the sun set and rise from my bed. I even love when I have to get up in the middle of the night to pee and get dumbstruck by the clarity and cacophony of the stars that you get when you put some distance between yourself and light pollution.
But I do not love the amount of faff that’s required between the moment of waking and the point when you’ve fed yourself, made coffee for the day, worked out what combination of layers you’re going to start walking in and changed into them in a tent just slightly larger than a coffin, washed up, brushed teeth, sorted your feet out, packed everything away in the tent, taken the tent down and packed that away too and are finally ready to start moving.
So it was basically 1pm by the time I set off. I’d already found out that my plan was overambitious the previous day. This really screwed it. And to top it off, it was raining, the cloud cover was low, and I had two big hairy Rhinog mountains to get over. Things weren’t looking good and I felt like a bit of a muppet.
Any thoughts I might have had of putting my foot on the gas and making up time were quashed almost immediately by another realisation that would take me another day or two to fully internalise:
In Snowdonia, if something looks like a relatively decent path on a map, it’s probably just a ploy by the mountains to lure you in and F you up.
For example, see the nice looking paths that track round the northern side of Llyn Hywel here (the ones without any gradient that look like they should just be a Sunday stroll around the lake)
Well, they actually look like this:
And in the wet these rocks are like jagged little ice rinks.
Sometimes the mist cleared and revealed landscapes of deepy hued reds and greens that almost looked slightly overexposed.
And sometimes it didn’t
But none of this meant I wasn’t going to take a silly photo at the summit:
In the valley between the two Rhinogs I made friends with the cutest slug I’ve ever seen:
Decided I’d jump the wall rather than crawling through this pretty stupid crossing in the marsh
And pretended not to be a bit cold and unhappy with my progress when I summitted Rhinog Fawr
On the descent there were more ridiculous ‘paths’ that slowed me to a scrambly crawl
And a load of paths that were basically streams with the rocks so rinky that I’ve never fallen over so many times on a walk before, despite tip toeing down them with burglar like care.
By the time I approached Cwm Bychan I’d had enough. I was wet, cold and sore. It wasn’t long until nightfall. And I’d done about 10km total (vs over 30km in the plan). I pitched my tent, ate some food, went to bed soggy, shivering and grumpy, but resolved to reset the next day and see what I could make happen with a decent start….
Day 3: Saturday:
…And life got better. Despite it being incredibly windy on the ridges of the Northen Rhinogs
And there being more of those ‘paths’ I’d learned to love:
And at one point sinking into a bog up to my knees and getting my feet soaked:
The sunshine was really trying to make an effort, the landscape felt wild and solitary, but traversable
And I bagged another couple of the lower summits, including Clip at 590m and Moel Ysgfamogod (I have no idea how this is pronounced) at 633m.
After these there was some much easier walking through to Maentwrog, passing by the power station, which despite having a plaque on it saying it’s nuclear electric, was actually hydro-electric (although the same reservoir created by the dam was used to supply coolant to the nearby Trawsfynydd nuclear power plant, which has been in a decommissioning process since 1991, although the Welsh government has been working to redeveloping the site with small nuclear reactors since 2021.
And then I got to Maentwrog. More specifically the Grapes Hotel in Maentwrog, where I cheated.
I cheated hard.
In the form of a burger, chips and halloumi fries.
And a Pepsi.
And a lime and lemonade.
And a latte.
And getting them to fill up my thermos with proper coffee.
It was So. Freaking. Good!
After which life just felt better, and the frustration and cold of the day before melted away. Helped by the fact that the walk out of Maentwrog was stunning, in a really gentle way. There were woods, and bluebells, and waterfalls:
And the narrow gauge Ffestiniog railway, which was built in 1832 to transport slate to Porthmadog, and was initially powered by gravity (with the empty carts then pulled back by ponies). In 1863 they introduced locomotives to the line, but in 1872 a proper main line railway took most of their business and now it’s mostly just a (very cute) tourist attraction.
Then it was time to start climbing again. A speedy 350m of ascent up to Llyn Stwylan with some fun little scrambly bits
I’d intended to camp up by the side of the reservoir, but when I emerged below it I saw this spectacular view of the abandoned quarry and dam and had the idea of camping in one of the dam’s arches.
And it worked really well as a spot. Super sheltered and hidden away, with a spectacular view that got even more stunning as the sun set…
Day 4: Sunday
I woke the next morning happy, and actually warm, and set off to climb to the peak of Moelwyn Mahr, stopping to admire the reflections in the reservoir on the way up.
The views from the top were pretty awesome too. There are a lot of high lying tarns in this bit of the world, and they’re really quite pretty.
But my favourite part of this bit of the walk was passing through the old Rhosydd slate quarry and seeing the scale of the mining enterprise from the 1800w out in the middle of nowhere on the side of a mountain.
The mine went through several phases, and doesn’t ever seem to have been particularly financially successful. But at one point there were 207 men living and working here, mining in 170 underground chambers, producing about 220,000 tons of finished slate and leaving 2.5 million tons of rock in waste tips behind.
The old worker cottages are still standing in pretty good nick given the time that’s passed:
And I think this must have been one of the old mine entrances:
And there are tips everywhere!
But the sheer scale of the enterprise only becomes clear when you get some more distance from it:
It must have been a proper hard job living out here and manual labouring all of this out of the ground.
Meantime, in the soft, modern, millennial world, I had a lot of fun playing slate xylophones with my feet! (Sound required)
As I started traversing round the valley to head to Cnicht, my next peak, something weird starting happening. Other people started appearing! At first this was lovely. I find that when you bump into other figures sporadically on a relatively isolated walk, particularly other solo adventurers, there’s a real sense of meeting a kindred spirit. A brief connection and a shared experience that feels really genuine, with the understanding that after a brief chat you leave each other to your respective solitudes.
It was a sunny Easter Sunday though, and I was entering the much more popular section of Snowdonia, and the volume of people kept increasing. It turned into an interesting study of at what point does the density of people start making it a total ball-ache to be pleasant and nice to everyone (a.k.a. the London effect).
It turns out it’s about this many people. Particularly when they come in groups and it starts feeling a bit silly to say hello to each one of them.
My solution: only engage with the people who have dogs. Dogs are the best.
Cnicht is a stunning, multiple craggy domed peak, with 360 degree views as far as the eye can see (at least on this day), and something like 14 high altitude tarns on show.
I took a quick breather at the top and enjoyed myself watching people stumble, knackered and happy, onto the summit from the ridge as/decent I was just about to head down. All the grumpiness and despondency from the day before were now truly dissipated. My mountain legs had developed. My pack was lighter. I decided it was time to put my foot on the gas and see what I could catch up, and maybe put myself back in with a shot of making it to Conwy before my train home.
I practically skipped down the ridge from Cnicht (stopping only to stroke dogs)
After this was about 10km of pretty much flat ground through Nantmoor, Beddgelert and Lyn Dinas before the next mountain, which just happened to be Snowdon. I reckoned if I got a scoot on I was in with a chance of getting up and over Snowdon before nightfall, but it was going to be super tight.
In the valley on the lead up to Beddgelert is a river path, with the water running rapids through baked, reddish rock (on a sunny day). This felt more like Arizona or Colorado than Wales!
It was around here that I started getting signs that Snowdon is an interesting mountain from the point of view of the safety of the general public. At Nantmoor, as I passed through a car park, there were two mountain rescue teams looking pretty flustered and clearly trying to plan out between them how they were going to split and order a backlog of work between them.
Then, on path out of Beddgelert a slightly lost looking woman in jeans, trainers, t-shirt and jacket spied me with my rucksack and flagged me down. Told me she’d been wandering around most of the afternoon looking for Snowdon (she was still about 6km away), and could I tell her the best way to find it and get up it easily. I pointed it out on a map, pointed her to the peak in the distance, told her I didn’t know an ‘easy’ way up per se, and that it was definitely too late in the day for her to attempt to do it now (feeling like a bit of a hypocrite!)
But yeah, bonkers.
I got to the bottom of the Watkin Path to start the Snowdon Ascent around 4.30pm. We were still in the game, but it was tight. Thankfully this first section of the climb is pretty gentle and well pathed.
It also had these funky Welsh mountain goats.
Pretty waterfalls
And I love it when Wales occasionally looks a bit Jurassic.
And it was busy! In a London park on a sunny day kind of way. Although, at this stage, mostly with people coming back down the mountain.
At around 400m height I broke from the Watkin Path to head to the start of the South Ascent, and then stopped by Bwlch-Cwm Llan to have a quick breather before the final 500m of ascent
At this point things got a bit steeper, scramblier and generally a lot of fun! The views weren’t bad either…
The summit in sight. (I really hate that train station!)
Quick rest at the top:
And as the sun started going down it just got full on majestic.
But there was something odd going on too. I thought I was cutting it fine on time before it got dark, and to be honest had been gunning pretty hard to compensate. I had the reassurance of carrying the gear to spend the night on the mountain if need be (although I really didn’t want to be camping exposed at high altitude). However I kept coming across people who seemed pretty unbothered that there was only an hour or so of daylight left: a couple of blokes I passed struggling up the mountain with what looked like some pretty basic looking camping gear, and who were needing to take rest stops every 50m or so… And then a whole bunch of folks on the summit in t-shirts, with no rucksacks/kit, idling about and chatting. I thought there was no way they were going to get off in time, but maybe they knew something I didn’t? So I kept my mouth shut. And then as I basically jogged down the Pyg track to get down as fast and as far as I could I found myself passing more groups who were similarly gear-less and really slow over the scramblier sections.
Usually I assume that people on mountains know what they’re doing, but I was getting a really uneasy feeling that there were going to be some people in trouble tonight. And there were so many of them!
As an aside, I don’t think it helps that this was the most ‘Disneyfied’ mountain I’d ever been on: it’s got a train going up it, concrete stairs at the top, and some of the paths have basically been as close to paved as you can get on that kind of incline. I suspect that all of this gives people a false sense of security that they are somewhere controlled and safe (as well as also being annoyingly ugly on an otherwise stunning mountain). If it was up to me I’d rip it all out. But then I guess it would cut off access to people who otherwise wouldn’t be able to get up there, which would also be a massive shame…
And then it got dark. I pressed on for a while with a headtorch before heading off the path and camping up with just under a kilometre to go before Pen y Pass. I was relieved and ready for food and bed, but had a nagging concern for the (many) people that I knew were still on the mountain behind me.
And then my fears were realised. A Mountain Rescue helicopter passed over and headed upwards to the summit. The first time I’ve ever seen one in action. I had a really uncomfortable feeling that I really should have done more to check with/warn the people I’d seen of their situation.
It wasn’t over yet though. Around midnight, just after I’d bedded down, I had the surreal experience of hearing voices quite far off, and as I listened close I realised that they were discussing me! ‘Is that a tent?’ and torchlight swept across and lit up my tent. My first thought was that I’d screwed up and set up camp in view of a landowner. I’m usually pretty careful to camp late, get out the way, and be gone before anyone would realistically be able to reach and see me in the daylight. But maybe I’d made a mistake in the dark?
I unzipped and stuck my head out of the tent, ready to make my apologies, and promise to be gone with no trace in the morning. But when I looked I saw there were multiple lights, some of the most powerful torches I’ve ever seen, descending in a pattern down the mountainside, still quite a long way up the valley. The wind direction and shape of the valley were bringing their voices down to me really clearly and I realised it was a Mountain Rescue team sweeping the area, wondering whether I was in need of help. As they were discussing my positioning and evaluating whether I was in trouble; ‘It’s camped out of the way, I think it’s fine’ I racked my brain for a way to make an ‘I’m fine’ signal in the dark that couldn’t be misinterpreted as ‘I need help’. I couldn’t think of one. Thankfully they decided that I should be left alone, and hopefully went on to help anyone else who needed it.
I vowed that in future, I’ll never suspect that someone could be in unwitting trouble on a mountain without at least checking in with them that they are aware of their situation and have a plan. I really hope everyone was ok…
Day 5: Monday
In my original plan, this was going to be my last day of walking, rewarded with a night in a bed, a hot shower, and an all you can eat breakfast at the YHA Conwy. With over 40km and 2,700m of ascent left to go, that was looking like a pipe dream right now. But I’d made up enough ground to at least realistically finish the route in time for my train home on Tuesday morning if I got a wriggle on. I woke early to beautiful, eerie clouds moving through the landscape.
I had a quick stop to top up on supplies (well, chocolate) at the YHA in Pen y Pass, and then hit the ascent up to the Glyders; Fawr and Fach.
This was the only section of the walk that I was familiar with, having walked Tryfan and the Glyders the month before (on a beautiful sunny day), so I already knew the plateau between the two Glyders was a pretty magical place, covered in alien looking jagged rock formations caused by freeze-thaw shattering.
But in the mist it had a whole new mystical (Macbeth witchy, but in a fun way) vibe up there, probably helped by the fact that I seemed to have the place to myself this time! I took about a hundred photos of strange rocky outcrops looming through the mist. Here’s just a few:
(Can you tell I love this place!?)
And then, as I exited the Glyders, turned the corner, and started the descent to Ogwen, the sun came out and I got to see Tryfan in all it’s rocky, pointed glory (no time to climb it this time sadly).
I had a little break at Ogwen car park to get my feet ready for the next stage, stuffed my face with a pasty and sausage roll from the café, and tried to set off at speed to do as much of the final stage as I could get under my belt before nightfall.
I’d clearly forgotten that Snowdonia has it in for anyone trying to move at speed. The flat first section along the valley, that I thought I’d zip through, ended up looking like this:
Cue lots more slowly picking a route through boulder fields!
And then it was climbing time. 700m of ascent, which again started relatively normally, but became a bit more aggressive than I was anticipating towards the end.
Genuinely surprised this wasn’t flagged in my guidebook. This was a proper scramble climb!
But then I was up, and the next section of the walk was a clear ridge walk, bagging a clutch of the ‘Welsh 3000’ peaks on the way: Pen yr Ole Wen (978m), Carnedd Dafydd (1,044m) and peaking at Carnedd Llewelyn (at 1,064 only 21m shy of Snowdon) before descending through Foel-fras (942m), Drum (770m), and Tal y Fan (610m).
Again, I was super lucky with the weather and the views:
Finally, around 7.30pm, I got my first sight of the destination:
I pushed on for a while longer as the sun started to set:
And then for a bit longer with a headtorch…
…And then, at about 10pm I basically collapsed off the path and set up camp with about 10km left to roll into Conwy.
Day 6: Tuesday
I’d missed my YHA stay to finish the walk, but was fixated on getting into Conwy with enough time for a fry-up before my late morning train. That galvanised me for an early start! Given that I was pretty shattered by this stage, the fact that most of the remaining walk was much more pastoral and gentle to what I’d been used to was a very welcome relief.
The final stretch humped over Conwy Mountain, and as I rounded the top Conwy Castle came into view
And then, before I knew it, I was there!
With time to fulfil the dream before jumping on (several) trains home
It took a day or so to adjust being back from this trip to be honest. The smells of the city, and just the number of people kicking around felt pretty aggressive until I’d had a good sleep in a bed. To be fair, I was also pretty knackered/ragged by the time I was done, so that probably didn’t help things…
BUT, my key takeaways from the trip were:
-I have absolutely fallen head over heels in love with this part of the world. I can’t believe I’ve gone all this time without exploring it properly. I will be back for sure!
-High on my hit list are Cadair Idris – it looked stunning from a distance. And also heading back to the Rhinogs for a re-do on a sunny day with views, and when I’m not grumpy with myself for sleeping in!
-I’d also like to hit Snowdon again and try a couple of different routes on a non-bank holiday, when there are fewer people around (my favourite days in the mountains are the ones where I don’t meet anyone else).
-I got a full-on route planning reality check. I was way too optimistic about covering rough ground with a heavy pack, with the greatest discrepancy being that I thought all flat ground would be speedy to cross.
-I also hugely underestimated the calorie intake required. My Apple Watch tells me I burned over 6,000 calories on some days. I know it’s unreliable, but the ravenous way I ate anything extra I could get my hands on en-route tells me that I was definitely under-egging it with what I’d brought.
-And I’ll never back down from addressing a suspicion that someone else might not be totally safe and on top of things on a mountain again, even if it’s just to be kindly inquisitive about their plans.