Yr Elen and the Carneddau

Sunday 30th August 2015

On my walk the day before this one I had seen across the valley a promising route up the north-eastern ridge of Yr Elen. I had never climbed Yr Elen by that route before, or in fact by any route before. On this holiday I was trying to find new routes up the familiar mountains of Snowdonia, and Yr Elen is a mountain that I have been to the summit several times, but always from the higher peak of its neighbour, Carnedd Llewelyn. Yr Elen is really just an off-shoot or side-ridge of Carnedd Llewelyn so most of the time I have simply nipped across the connecting ridge to ‘bag’ the summit and then nipped back. The last time I was on Yr Elen was in 2007 and on that occasion I had come down the long north-western ridge. The idea of doing this new ascent of Yr Elen was so appealing to me that I abandoned my planned walk for this day in order to do it. There is a long walk-in to get to Yr Elen so I’d parked in a narrow street in the tightly-packed community of Gerlan above the town of Bethesda.

I have parked at that point several times before so I felt fortunate to find an empty parking place before setting off up a footpath that led to the farm of Tan-y-garth on the edge of the Snowdonia National Park. It was very hazy at this point in the day with the sun spending most of the morning trying to pierce through thin cloud, but it was ultimately never really successful with the cloud eventually thickening up and descending in the afternoon. However, there was one benefit with the weather as there was hardly any wind, even at the top of the mountains. The day before this walk there had been a strong, cold, northerly wind blowing at the tops, but this was happily absent for this walk. Beyond Tan-y-garth I crossed the open hillside onto a track that headed into the valley of the Afon Caseg past the ruins of ancient settlements and with the mountains of the Carneddau brooding under the clouds before me and Yr Elen taking centre stage.

Soon the track ended and I was left to find whatever trace that I could find of a footpath up the valley below the towering rocks of Carreg y Gath and into Cwm Caseg. The steep-sided, crag-filled cirque was a stunning sight with tremendous scenery all around me that was simply breath-taking, but the lack of a clear footpath indicated that this area is rarely visited. This is tragic and marks a significant difference between Snowdonia and the Lake District where footpaths abound and every valley has clear routes through it and every fell has many clear paths up to the tops. In Snowdonia there are few clear paths apart from the top of the ridges where the footpaths are well-defined. This does mean that it is easy to get away from the crowds who stay on these well-defined routes. With the clouds already beginning to descend onto the mountain tops I reached the foot of the steep north-eastern ridge of Yr Elen and began my ascent.

After an initial steep climb up a grassy slope the gradient eased and the ridge narrowed to give me a glorious ascent with jagged rock to my right and smoother grass and scree slopes to my left. Near the top of the ridge there is a mass of rocks that block the route up, but a path materialises just before and follows a cunning route through the blockage to scramble satisfyingly up to the top of the ridge not far from the summit of Yr Elen. This was a fabulous end to what had been a relatively easy, but satisfying climb and deposited me at the top of Yr Elen with thin cloud swirling around undecided on whether to cover the summit or not. While I had my lunch at the summit the clouds played with the top of the mountains, sometimes covering them and sometimes lifting to reveal tremendous views of the surrounding mountains, and all the time with hardly a breath of wind.

With the views across to Carnedd Llewelyn briefly clear I crossed the fabulous narrow ridge that connects Yr Elen with its bigger neighbour while towards the mountains that I’d visited the day before the clouds lifted to afford me with sensational views to match the quality of the ridge. The sun was not to be seen again as the cloud descended once more and I climbed the well-defined path up the scree to the summit of Carnedd Llewelyn. I had hardly seen anyone all morning, but as I made my way along the well-defined path at the top of the ridge that connects Carnedd Llewelyn and Carnedd Dafydd, I passed many, many people. This is a glorious ridge and fully deserves its popularity. Cloud filled the northern crags of Ysgolion Duon above Cwmglas Mawr just as it had when I crossed this ridge in 2007, but now it was mesmerizingly windless.

Being at the top of this ridge with no wind added to my enjoyment and prompted me to literally skip along the path and hop across the rocks as I made the most of this magical experience. I entered the clouds once again as I neared Carnedd Dafydd and with the cloud now lingering I traversed the ridge over Carnedd Fach to Pen Yr Ole Wen at the western end of the glorious Carneddau ridge. My original plan for this day had been to climb the south ridge of Pen Yr Ole Wen but with my change of plans I was now looking to descend so I took a compass reading and turned north to head down the long, grassy slopes of Braich Ty Du to eventually return to my car. Even though the weather had deteriorated during the course of the day the lack of wind had made being at the top of the mountains a memorable experience. These are great mountains and the ridge between Carnedd Llewelyn and Carnedd Dafydd is amazing to walk along in any weather. When I was last there in 2009 the weather had been atrocious and yet I had still enjoyed the traverse. I hope I don’t leave it as long to do it again.