Pen yr Helgi Du & Carnedd Llywelyn

Saturday May 5th 2012 saw me back in the Ogwen Valley Snowdonia and camping at the Gwern Gof Isaf campsite just down the road from the mighty Tryfan. This was only meant to be a short walk up to Pen yr Helgi Du and back down again using the service road to the Flynnon Llugwy opposite the campsite. It did however turn into a 6 & 1/2 hours of pure pleasure taking in the third highest summit of Carnedd Llywelyn and generally having a leisurely walk around this great area.
The view from my tent of the route I was to take

The first part of the service road is a bit of a struggle and takes a bit of huffing and puffing as it goes straight up from the road. It soon starts to get less steep and then you can concentrate on the views ahead and the ones behind.
This is the view towards the Ogwen Valley with Tryfan, Glyder Fach, Y Garn & Pen yr Ole Wen taking centre stage

and the way ahead towards Bwlch Eryl Farchog and the way up to my two summits for the day

Despite high cloud and cool temperatures it was feeling quite warm when the sun came out. There was very little in the way of wind and it was a pleasure to be out and about in these conditions. Once I arrived at the Flynnon Llugwy it was time to leave the road and take the path that leads to the top of the ridge

once at the top of the path the views began to open up even more with a great view down the ascent path with Moel Siabod, The Glyderau, Tryfan and the campsite below the sparkling Flynnon Llugwy

And the view down the other side of the ridge towards the old quarry buildings below and across the valley towards Craig Eigiau

After looking around for ten minutes or so I took the path that led up the very pleasent and short scramble to the summit of Pen yr Helgi Du

Once at the summit, the views all around were clear, the air was cool and I had the place to myself.
Great :-)

It was that clear that Snowdon was poking its head out from behind the Glyders

I decided to have a look around the plateau and have a bit of lunch just taking it all in. It was at this point I decided to go up to Carnedd Llewelyn as I was in no rush and had plenty of time on my side. Also the weather was being kind and there wasn't that many people knocking about. I wonder if that was the case across the way as the train huffed and puffed up the Llanberis track!!

So it was back down and onwards towards Llywelyn where I came across some climbers having fun climbing up from Cwm Eigiau far below

There was quite a biting wind blowing up the gulley and it looked hard work but good fun.
This is looking back at there climb that shows how high it is

Time to move on and get away from the biting wind blowing up this ridge. It must of been really cold climbing up there and I for one was glad to be able to get away from it and in the relatively warm walk up to Carnedd Llywelyn where there was still patches of snow lying about. Again the views opened up around from the rocky summit plateau.

After hanging around for a good 45 minutes it was time to make my decent, going back the same way with good views all the way down the valley

I decided that I would ignore the way down towards Flynnon Llugwy

 

And continue on back upto Pen yr Helgi Du and make my way down from there. Its an easy enough path to follow as its quite a broad grassy plateau

 with some great views over towards the Ogwen Valley

and dead ahead towards Moel Siabod

The path down was soon found and joined up with the service road as I was looking right down into the view that occupies much of this walk

From here on it was just a case of a gentle walk down the road and back to camp

which was now bathed in sunshine

as was the whole of the days walk.

At the end of the day I met some friends and went for a meal at the Plas y Brenin Mountain Centre and took the opportunity to get a photo of my favourite view of the Snowdon Horseshoe as the sun was going down about 9.15pm. A great end to a great day of my weekend in the Ogwen Valley Snowdonia

This is a short video I took while having lunch at the summit of Pen yr Helgi Du