After far too long an absence, I finally returned to Snowdonia a few weekends ago. Wanting to steer clear of the hordes and also wanting that rare commodity of a Welsh hill we hadn't already been up, we decided to stay just south west of Blaenau Ffestiniog and try out the Moelwyns for size.
Hence on Saturday morning we found ourselves tramping up to the summit of Cnicht, a rather deceptive hill commonly referred to as the Welsh Matterhorn. Indeed, from the village of Croesor in the valley bottom it appears a sharply pointed, towering beast, however as you ascend the very pleasant path it becomes clear that the monster is actually quite diminutive, and the top is easily attained. By the time we got there the cloud had alas descended and so our efforts were rewarded only by that most common of Welsh views: soggy greyness in every direction.
Undeterred we continued north, down the gentle ridge to Llyn yr Adar, lake of the birds. The terrain here is grassy, with lots of little humps and bumps and little in the way of clear paths, making navigation rather tricky. Visibility had reduced to less than five metres, and it wasn't long before we had an inkling that we weren't quite in the place that we had meant to be; the 'path' we had been following had veered too far to the south. Out came the map and compass, and after much squinting into the clag in search of a feature, any feature, we worked out what had gone wrong. We strode forth on a bearing of due east and within a few minutes the cloud lifted a little to reveal our target: a ruined slate mine.
Such relics of our industrial heritage are always impressive, and having them appear as if out of nowhere adds significantly to the atmosphere. We descended into the crumbling buildings, now populated only by sheep, and had a good explore, finding an old wheel here, a still-intact fireplace there. Entrances to the mines are dotted all over the place and the temptation to venture inside is strong. Tales from cavers of the instability of such places, and an unwillingness to get our feet wet, caused us to resist.
Instead we continued with the walk, beginning the ascent of the next hill by hauling ourselves up long-disused inclines. Dubious-looking slate walls towered precipitously over us, and multiple signs warned of danger. Such things did nothing to dampen our mood however, as the sun was coming out, the clouds were rising steadily higher and it had all the makings of a thoroughly nice afternoon. Indeed by the time we reached the summit of Moelwyn Mawr the last vestiges of clag had disappeared and the view was incredible.
I have always struggled to get my mental map of Snowdonia right, the hills just haven't seemed to click together in the way that those in the Lakes or the Yorkshire Dales do. The Moelwyns have gone a long way to solving this problem for me; in fact I don't think there is anywhere better from which to survey the Welsh mountains. The whole panorama stretches out in front of you: Snowdon, the Glyders and the Nantlle Ridge to the north; the Rhinogs and Cadair Idris to the south, to name but a few. And, because the Moelwyns are rather less famous than many of these, you are likely to get the view all to yourself.
The remainder of the walk led us over the satisfyingly-rocky spine of Craigysgafn, up to the final top of Moelwyn Bach. We reluctantly took one last look around us then began the descent, an easy stroll down a fairly wide grass-covered ridge. After a short stint along the edge of a wood and about a kilometre on a rarely used road we were back where we had started. We garnered some strange looks in the car park by doing some stretches, sneaked a Revel to a dog with a nose tuned to chocolate, and then headed off to the cafe for well-deserved tea and cake.
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