Fantastic day out today walking from Blaenau Ffestiniog (train there! The Conwy Valley line never fails in the views department) to Beddgelert, over Cnicht, the Welsh Matterhorn.
Lovely views as the cloud just about held off the summit whilst I was there. It was also lovely seeing Cwmorthin Quarry, the wonderfully underrated Moelwynion range, and Pont Aberglaslyn, one of my favourite spots in North Wales.
For those wanting to do Cnicht, and are happy to use public transport, this is a great way to do it. From Blaenau, you DESCEND down to Croesor, so the famously unforgiving steep section near the top is done going down instead of up (depends on your preference, but I'd rather let gravity do some of the work for me!).
The section after Cwmorthin, before the pull-up to Cnicht North Top was tricky path finding at times, where there wasn't a clear route to follow, but it's easy enough to loosely head in the right direction, and some paths crop up here and there.
About 18km, 600m ascended, around 750m descended, and done in 5 hours. (OurdoorActive says 6, but I'm quite a fast Walker!)
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