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Glyder Fach from Llyn Bochlwyd

Bristly Ridge (GL2)

Despite its savage-looking spikes its bark is worse than its bite, so have a go!

Experienced hillwalkers (though not family parties with children) may well be tempted to leave the miners’ track at Bwlch Tryfan to tackle the Bristly Ridge, a rock scramble par excellence and one of the tours de force of the Welsh hills.

Turn SW at the bwlch and struggle up the scree, along a trace of a path that parallels the wall. Then swing R to abut on the rock face at the entrance to a narrow gully. This is slightly above where the wall also embeds itself in the ridge. Squeeze up the gully as far as you can and then clamber up the rock face R to the crest. That is where you should stay, on the crest, guided by polished boulders and the tell-tale scratchmarks of the thousands who have gone before. Now scrambling up a little wall, now crossing a cleft between two pinnacles, now trending L, now dodging round to the R… So it goes on, sporting and challenging every minute of the way. Airy? Delightfully so. Exposed? No. Despite the succession of pinnacles and crags there is never a problem, given a modicum of care, in securing your flanks. In truth there is nowhere to go but the crest once you are launched. It would be far harder (and riskier) to try to dismount (unless you are a rock climber), until the final and sharpest notch that is. Now you do have a choice; either stay on the crest or settle for an easy bouldery rake W. Either way you soon have massive white slabs underfoot as the tension abates and a cairned path leads to the huge chaotic tor of Glyder Fach.