This was a very hot June walk of about thirteen miles, from Llanbedr y Cennin to Capel Curig. It's hard to give an accurate distance because I was walking from home, not from the village, and any walk on open land varies a little, person to person. This was a long but pleasant walk, on terrain that never gained too much altitude, avoiding the Carneddau peaks, although there were a couple of steep bits.
Starting from Llanbedr y Cennin, walk straight up the hill from Y Bedol pub, past The Bull, and on upwards until you meet the footpath which takes you past the cottage of Tyddyn Rhobin and past the east face of Pen y Gaer. There are also a number of footpaths from Rowen which would take you to the same starting point, from the village past Glasgoed and Gorswen, up past Tyddyn Wern, and then across the footpath past Llwyn y Gwaew.
See a video of parts of the walk here.
Approaching the Tyddyn Rhobin footpath from above. Approaching from Llanbedr will bring you up from below.
The hump of Pen y Gaer from the Tyddyn Rhobin footpath, which goes along the drive to the house, then past it and on across the slope of the hill until the woods begin.
It's a bit of an uphill hike through the woods on a hot day, but the trees are shady and the woods are rather lovely. At the right time of year the ground is covered in bluebells.
After leaving the woods and striking out across the hillside below Pen y Gaer, bracken and foxgloves covered the ground. Earlier in the year this is just grassland.
I don't know how old these fields walls are; I suspect not as old as they seem - but they do make for beautiful views, and I will always admire dry stone wallers for their skill. At this time of year the wall is like a groyne running into a sea of bracken.
Walking along by the leat, which emerges from a tunnel running right underneath the great bump of Pen y Gaer. These leats are impressive constructions, but I do regret the interference with the natural water flow on the hills.
The view down the Conwy Valley towards the coast.
The Afon Conwy snakes in broad meanders down through the flat valley floodplains below. There is a legend that a great beaver-like monster, the afanc, lives in the lakes further up the valley. It's when the afanc stirs in the water that floods rush down to cover these fertile fields.
We reached Onen Ebryd, an old farmhouse and mill which must have been beautiful in its day, with gable windows in the farmhouse, and the mill building with waterwheel opposite. There's still a lilac bush and a lot of soapwort in the small garden in front of the house.
Leaving Onen Ebryd behind.
We continued along the footpath towards the Afon Dulyn, and the old farmhouse of Rowlyn Isa on the hill opposite, where the footpath meets the road.
After a steep hike down and up across the Dulyn river valley, which can be muddy and difficult at times, we were back on tarmac again, but only briefly as we crossed over the road to the footpath that leads past the old Capel Soar and along the side of Waen Bryn Gwenith. This shot is looking back the way we came, with Pen y Gadair in the distance.
A rather lovely blossoming hawthorn on the hillside above Rowlyn Isa.
After following the footpath that skirts around the edge of Waen Bryn Gwenith, we found ourselves in sight of the Coedty reservoir. Once this was just a little river valley with a few farms in it, but the reservoir was built in conjunction with the Eigiau reservoir to provide power to the aluminium factory in Dolgarrog. When the shoddily built Eigiau dam burst in November 1925, the water rushed down this valley and burst the Coedty dam too. You can see a 9 minute silent film of the aftermath of the disaster on the BFI website, here, and some of my photos of Eigiau here.
We cut across west of Coedty, following the footpath that reaches the river near the demolished farmhouse of Pwlldu. The path took us past these rather lovely horses.
The horses were a little curious about the dogs.
Cotton grass grows through the other grasses on the valley floor.
We joined the old Eigiau tramway, which was a narrow-gauge tramway linking the Cwm Eigiau and Cedryn quarries and the Eigiau reservoir to Dolgarrog in the valley below. The track provides an easy walking surface right up to Llyn Eigiau.
The view from the tramway over towards the valley where Llyn Eigiau lies.
A few tumbled stone walls near the tramway. I don't know if these were associated with farming, or with the tramway works.
One of the places where the track diverts briefly from the tramway. The tramway crosses a narrow bridge, while the track goes a little to the left.
Now the failed dam at Eigiau is just visible, with the breach in the wall standing to the centre left of the picture. Torrents of water surged through this small breach on the night of November 2, 1925, killing 16 people in Dolgarrog, mostly women and children.
We turned off the Eigiau tramway and took the footpath up over Moel Eilio, past the ruins of Eilio cottage.
The roof of Eilio collapsed not many years ago, and the gable end to the right is leaning precipitously, so the house is decaying fast now.
Leaving Eilio behind. This must have been a bleak place to live at times, but also beautiful. A story has been told to me about the family that lived there at the turn of the 20th century; the father of the family went into the barn to check on the bull one winter day, and the bull killed him. The mother and daughter dragged his body all the way down to Trefriw afterwards.
Crossing one of the amazing stone walls that line these hills, and represent hours and hours of physical labour and skill.
As we came down on the south side of Moel Eilio the Cowlyd reservoir finally became visible, a streak of blue behind the dam. I don't know what this structure in the foreground is, but it must have been used in relatively modern times, as it has a concrete tank built next to it.
We came down to meet the track that runs west along the valley towards the small quarry used during the construction of the dam.
Llyn Cowlyd is supposed to be the deepest lake in Wales, so perhaps the slope of the mountain to the south continues at the same angle below the water. The lake was turned into a reservoir in 1897, and a new dam was built in 1921 to further expand its capacity. Like Llyn Eigiau and the Coedty reservoir, Cowlyd supplies water to the hydro-electric plant at Dolgarrog via massive metal pipes.
It's a long walk along the side of the lake, but quite a pleasant one. When the track turned north towards the quarry, we carried on along the footpath, which leads over grassy ground with no obvious path for a while.
Looking back towards the Conwy Valley as we left the track. The great black water pipe can be seen in the distance, leading down towards Dolgarrog.
There are a number of ruined houses along the shores of Cowlyd, but I think my favourite has to be Cwm Cowlyd, a beautiful little cottage and outbuilding, with a range of further building to the east. Sadly the fireplace has collapsed in the cottage, but there are still joists and parts of the roof surviving.
Looking back east along the length of Llyn Cowlyd. There is a possibility that this is one of the locations mentioned in the Mabinogion, as the home of the wise Owl of Cwm Cowlyd, one of oldest animals in the world.
Looking west along Cowlyd, and there's still a long way to go.
For a lot of this walk along the lake the path is quite good and easy to follow.
Time for a brief rest and cool down in the water.
It's always worth taking time stop and look at the small things. Many beautiful little wildflowers blossom in the grasses at this time of year.
At the end of the lake there's something of a climb to get up over the hump of hill, and start walking down again towards Capel Curig.
At the top of the slope the land flattens out into a kind of moorland. There is a boundary stone marked on the map here, Maen Trichwmwd, which marks the convergence of three districts. I had a hope it might be the large stone to the left of this photo, but that's only a hope. I would like to go back and have another look.
This newer bridge seems to replace the older one in the previous photo, which is partially collapsed.
Crossing one of the little streams that run down into Cowlyd.
It's quite strange to walk up from the valley and find yourself on this broad plain. Tryfan can be seen in the distance, and Llyn Owgen is in the valley beside the mountain.
We headed roughly due south, along the footpath that meets the A5.
The land is quite boggy in places, and there are many of these short little boardwalks to raise you above the mud. If you're a hot dog, it's better to be in the mud.
After a while of walking across the flat moorland the ground started to slope downwards.
Looking up the Ogwen valley, with Tryfan on the left. I'm not sure of the mountain on the right but it may be Pen yr Ole Wen.
Finally the A5 is visible below.
The A5 isn't always very busy, but it's a 60mph road and the cars come along very fast at times. The pavement, as such, varies from being reasonably wide to very narrow indeed, and it's rather a nerve-wracking walk with two dogs. I wouldn't recommend it with small children.
At last, the sign for Capel Curig. You can see how narrow the pavement gets.
The church in the photo is St Curig's Church, now converted to self-catering accommodation. It seems that the eponymous chapel of Capel Curig was a 15th or 16th century chapel that later became St Julitta's Church, lying a little way down the A4086. St Julitta's Church is now deconsecrated but still maintained by the Friends of St Julitta's.
The little National Park car park in Capel Curig makes a good spot to wait for a lift home, after a long, fun walk.
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