Читать книгу Hillwalking in Wales - Vol 2 онлайн

42 страница из 85

You should return to the path now. Heavily cairned, it ploughs through jostling scrums of spires and boulders to land you just L of the highest tor of all – the crown of all the Glyders.

Miners’ Track (N) (GL1)

For a track as easily graded as this to cross not only the main spine of the Glyders but also the high-level ridge linking Tryfan to Glyder Fach is truly remarkable.

The men who worked the copper mines in Cwm Dyli from Napoleonic times to the Great War showed extraordinary stamina. They used this same track week in and week out, fair weather and foul, to return to their homes in Bethesda from the bleak stone ‘dwellings’ that housed them during the week on Snowdon’s E slopes.

The track starts nowadays beside the refreshment hut at Ogwen, across the road from a phone box, and quickly leads to twin stiles (they cater for crowds here!) and a bridge. The first 300yd, where it doubles up as the path to Llyn Idwal, are flagged with boulders, but such luxury is short-lived. Where the main path swings R for the lake you must strike out SE across dark, mirey ground (where stepping stones have been all but swallowed up) to a rocky man-made stairway that climbs above the ravine of Nant Bochlwyd to one of Wales’ most enchanting lakesides.