These are tough hills to climb, as I discovered the weekend before last when I decided to embark on a two day backpacking adventure traversing the ridge from south to north, before dropping down to camp on the shores of a hidden lake nestling between folds of lower foothills, from where I returned to my car the following day across a series of varied ridges. Panorama of the Irish Sea, Rhinog Fawr and Rhinog Fach across Llyn Hywel, from Y Llethr The view is enhanced significantly by the lighter blue of the Irish Sea ever present a short distance away to the west. A steep descent leads down to the deep blue lake Llyn Hywel, beyond which the twin summits of Rhinog Fach and Rhinog Fawr rise steeply in layers of granite slabs. This gentleness ends abruptly north of Y Llethr, where a sudden change of scenery opens out into one of those views that make you want to sit down and take it all in before walking any further. A compact range of hills, the Rhinogs include the rolling grassy hills of Diffwys and Y Llethr at their southern end, a broad ridge whose most notable feature is a dry stone wall running along its entire length. It’s a fantastic mountain, there’s no question of that, but everyone knows it, and in this case most of its routes, even the adventurous knife edge ridge of Crib Goch, will have large numbers of walkers on them on a sunny day.Ī few miles south, however, is a pair of wild and beautiful secret gems: The Rhinogs. Snowdon in north Wales is another example. A mountain has many sides, but the surprising thing is how many people don’t consider this obvious fact. “I didn’t realise there was another way up here!” he remarked. Walkers on Diffwys’ summit ridge, with the Irish Sea to the rightĪ man at the top was amazed when he saw me arrive. I remember once being all alone on the knife edge ridge of the CMD arete on Ben Nevis, only to emerge on a summit heaving with walkers who had trudged up the usual boring tourist route. There are some hillwalking routes in the UK that everybody knows about, and in good weather are certain to be jam-packed with walkers, while others very close seem to remain known to connoisseurs only.
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