Читать книгу Hillwalking in Wales - Vol 2 онлайн

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It is easy to appraise the Glyders from the road, bounded as they are by the A4086 and the A5. Llanberis makes a sorry start. Towering battlements of slate, inelegantly gouged from the mountainside, cast a sombre shadow over what must once have been two enchanting lakes, Padarn and Peris. Despite their scars, they can still charm you on a sunny day.

The mood changes as quickly as the weather. A couple of miles up-valley ushers in one of Wales’ greatest spectacles, the Llanberis Pass, where the massive, lowering face of the Glyders (a Mecca for rock climbers) yields nothing in severity and grandeur to Snowdon’s N flanks on the other side. Beyond Pen y Gwryd the mood changes again. Now it is Moel Siabod that holds the gaze while the Glyders are at their gentlest in a flow of billowy moorland, dotted with crags and fledgling bluffs, white-ribboned by dashing streams.

And so to Capel Curig, the A5 (not forgetting the ‘old road’ of 1805 that parallels it much of the way) and the pièce de résistance. Thrills come thick and fast now. Cupped in the V of the valley, beyond Ogwen, are Y Garn and the plunging silhouette of Foel Goch. Nearer to hand Gallt yr Ogof’s elephantine sprawl is but the precursor to greater things, that most perfect of mountains, Tryfan. Airy ridges, spiky spurs and fresh mountain lakes follow in breathless succession. Bristly Ridge, Llyn Bochlwyd, Y Gribin, Seniors Ridge, Llyn Ogwen, Llyn Idwal, the Devil’s Kitchen, Llyn y Cwn, the twin ridges of Y Garn cradling shy Llyn Clyd… the names roll off the tongue like a hall of fame!