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When circling the Black Ladders on this walk, thereis a tendency to keep tight to the edge; as if walkers, having earned the privilege over the preceding hours to do so,are now determined to exercise the right. In winter, sometimes, while sitting here with the rocks and a view of your ridge, ice climbers will appear from below to come and sit in the sun with you, their duvet jackets incongruous in the sudden warmth and light after the cold waits and sunless struggles below. Those passing by on gentler paths away from the edge are doubtless over from Pen yr Ole Wen and deserve none of this camaraderie.

Beyond all rocks – from Bwlch y Cyrfyw Drum – an easy glide would have you down in the Cwm Llafar bowl, just a few boulders and bogs away from the grassed-over cart-track down to Gerlan. But the enterprise is only half done: ahead lies Llewelyn, beckoning from a bed of stones. And when Llewelyn calls, you go.

So large and flat is the summit area that you need to head out a good way towards Yr Elen before being sure that it is indeed the way you must go. A bit like hoisting the mainsail to see which way the wind blows. But what an appealing peak Yr Elen is – and all the more attractive for being less trodden than its bigger neighbours. It is difficult to pin down the reason for its appeal, though perhaps it is a combination of many things: the slender neck of its connecting ridge; the tiny teardrop lake sunk deep in its shadowed cwm; the view north towards other, even more remote, western ridges. On reaching the actual summit there is also an undeniable sense of satisfaction that the circling of Cwm Llafar is complete, and that now it really is downhill all the way.