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Criegiau Gleision/Mushroom Garden route (GL24)

I have never encountered another walker on this route.

Few walkers sample the E-facing cwms N of Y Garn and it is quite a surprise to find Criegiau Gleision (not to be confused with a peak of the same name in the Carneddau) sporting a shadowy little track.

Walk up the old road to the Yr Hafod hostel (644604), then follow a stream to the lip of the hanging valley above. This is Cwm Cywion (Cwm of the Chickens), a remote and sheltered hollow cradling the sparkling Llyn Cywion. One approach (ssss1) is to climb above the lake on steepish grass to gain the col between Foel Goch and Y Garn at its apogee at 627603. You then follow the grooved ridge path to a stile where the path divides. The main track swings W of N, bypassing the summit; the lesser one follows a fence, due N, straight to the cairn.

Foel Goch across Llyn Ogwen

For connoisseurs the more scenic option is to jump the stream as it emerges from a vegetated ravine and climb the long arm of the Mushroom Garden as it swoops down beside a tumbledown wall. A path, exiguous at first, trends W to the slender ridge of Creigiau Gleision proper. Speckled with flaky spikes of rock and soft tufts of bilberries, this is a wild gem, the land falling away sharply N in an intricate maze of gullies and fragile-looking pinnacles. Across Cwm Coch is the savage, dipping crest of Yr Esgair and its prominent notch. The ridge veers NW later to merge into the grassy nose culminating in Foel Goch from where, looking back, Creigiau Gleision rears as a fierce dark comb reminiscent of Cyfrwy near Cader Idris.