The Glyders 6/9/2014

The weekend of September 5/6/7th saw me meet up with a couple of walking friends, Catherine & Richard, plus Lexi, Stacy & Sylvia, who are Catherine's three delightful pet dogs. The idea behind the meet up was to be able to see the sunrise from the summit of Snowdon and also take in another walk depending on the weather conditions. We had hoped to do the sunrise walk on the Saturday morning but the weather didn't play ball, with low cloud and the threat of rain so we decided to visit the summits of Glyder Fach & Glyder Fawr. I have been here a few times and Catherine only the once about 5 years ago while Richard had been in the area but never ventured up to the summit's. We set of from our delightful little campsite about 9.30am for the short drive to the starting point in the Ogwen Valley. There was a bit of low cloud and drizzle but nothing to heavy and the forecast was for a promising day so we made our way up to LLYN BOCHLWYD  and followed the straight forward path to the wall at Bwlch Tryfan which is the the Southern end of the might TRYFAN. After a rest bite we followed the Miners path that skirts under the Bristly scree slopes and brings us out on to a col near to Llyn Caseg-fraith and then heading up to Glyder Fach and the Cantilever Stone.

Our route for the day

Cloud around Pen yr Ole Wen

A very misty Glyder Fach

Cwm Tryfan

Tryfan's south ridge

Jumping on the Cantilever Stone

Yay on the Cantilever Stone

After playing about on the stone and a bite to eat it was off and over the very rocky plateau, skirting round CASTELL y GWYNT(castle of the wind) and onto the equally rocky summit of GLYDER FAWR where the clouds were now clearing to give some great views over to Snowdon and beyond

Rocky way off Glyder Fach

Castell y Gwynt (castle of the wind)

Cloud clearing to give us a view of a distant Moel Siabod

A clear Snowdon Horseshoe

A moonscape rocky plateau of Glyder Fawr

Mist rolling in again

Snowdon from Glyder Fawr

The way down with a view of Y Garn and a distant Elidir Fawr

We made our way down the scree slope off the summit towards Llyn y Cwn before the ascent down the stony path passed the Twll Du (devils kitchen) to the shore of LLYN IDWAL

Coming off Glyder Fawr

View down Nant Ffrancon Pass

Llyn y Cwn & Y Garn

Looking across Pen yr Ole Wen from the descent path

Llyn y Cwn

Llyn Idwal, Llyn Ogwen, Pen yr Ole Wen from the Devils Kitchen

The Devils Kitchen

Looking back to our descent path, the Devils Kitchen and Llyn Idwal

When we got down to Llyn Idwal we saw a rather strange thing of a sheep stuck on a small rock Island just off the shoreline. Never seen anything like it before and I'm guessing it must of either been frightened into swimming there or just decided to take a short holiday. Anyway a couple of people decided it would be good of them to swim out and rescue it only to see it jump off the rocks and swim back to shore. Very comical :-)

the sheep stuck on a small rock Island

The rescuers are coming

We are coming to save you

Oh no you're not!

Safely made it back

Where's it gone??

We ended the day with fish and chips back at camp while we watched the sun going down behind Snowdon hoping that the clear night sky would last as we were to be up early to hopefully see the sunrise from the summit of Snowdon. Today though had been a great day on the rocky summits of the highest peaks of Snowdonia's GLYDERAU

 With thanks to my companions for the day, Catherine & Richard and not forgetting Lexi, Stacy & Sylvia, three of the nicest, well behaved dogs I've known, Cheers :-)