Glyder Fawr - Snowdonia 6 miles

So last weekend marked our first camping trip of 2017 and we'd gone all out and taken some time off work so we managed to squeeze in 4 nights away camping - an overnighter in Builth Wells to break up the journey and then 3 nights at Riverside Camping in Caernarfon (highly recommend if you're looking for a nice site that's a good base for walking in Snowdonia...and a 5* bistro on site none the less!)

We'd planned two long mountain hikes for the weekend but had decided to do the Glyders on the day the weather forecast was best which was Saturday. We enlisted the help of expert mountain guide Tim Ford, who conveniently is my friend Fi's husband and no stranger to hiking endless hours in the mountains through knee deep peat bog and treacherous terrain. We were more than happy to follow him and not have to navigate a potentially featureless and disorientating route!

We parked in a layby just down from the Pen y Gwryd hotel (details here: lots of cars get tickets parking along the road here so make sure you park in a layby...or on the Conwy side, apparently the Gwynedd traffic officers are much more trigger happy with tickets or so my North Walian sources tell me) which was crammed full of cars and other people heading up to the hills on the bank holiday weekend. We crossed the road and started a very muddy crossing through a lot of boggy ground before we made it to a path. Tina and Nerys' boots got soaked instantly but we start as we mean to go on, so on we ploughed, caked in mud!

We started the climb up the stony [lack of a] path and kept climbing until we got to the top, where we stopped for a drink and some jelly babies. Tina was starving and couldn't resist eating her sandwich...which she regretted later at the summit!

We took a left fork and headed up towards the big stony boulders that lead the way to the summit of the Glyders. There were some awesome views of Tryfan en route and we stopped to admire this mighty mountain from this angle. The last time I walked the Glyders, it was super misty on the ascent and at the summit so we didn't get to see any of these views. The clear day was a welcome rarity in North Wales!

Tryfan, looking fearsome in the distance.

We climbed up the rocky outcrop which is a bit scrambly to get to the Cantilever stone, which is a popular spot for photos. Tina kept calling it the Cantiliver stone but I'm determined we'll make a proper hiker out of her yet. Nerys has had a few rock climbing lessons this year which seemed to come in handy as she scampered up the stone easily. We left the dogs behind with Fi and Tim and I climbed up after Tina. Tina was having a bit of a crisis trying to jump across the stone so ended up slowly traversing several stones, much to the amusement of the walkers below waiting for a turn...and me, who became increasingly afraid of the drops and jumping across one to the other. We finally got across and all stood at the end of the Cantilever for an awesome photo.

We did it! Look at the arm symmetry!

We clambered back down and stopped for some lunch. The actual summit of Glyder Fawr is atop a load of other rocks opposite the Cantilever stone, so we decided to scramble up just for the achievement. This proved more difficult than it looked - especially when you're tethered to one beagle who thinks he is a mountain goat and leaps across any jump he encounters and another one who is a bit more nervous. I boosted Gracie across a jump but she missed her footing and slid down an awkwardly angled rock and looked like she hurt her leg. Cue a petrified beagle....I ended up having to carry her over the next few rocks scrambling and she was shaking so much I just decided to sit down and stop and enjoy the view.

I looked up to see where Nerys and Tina had gotten to and Tina was stuck a bit further up straddling a rock but unable to move any further....no idea how she even covered this much ground but lo and behold, there she was! She then proceeded to tap a foreign tourist on the shoulder who was at the summit to hold her trekking pole so she could climb up! He couldn't speak any English and looked both confused and amused.

Tina feeling victorious, until she realised she was a huge rock away from the summit...the stranger who helped her out hadn't shown up at this point!

I decided to abandon my ascent to the very top of Glyder Fawr because Gracie looked worse for wear and I was a bit worried I may have destroyed my beagle puppy. As I was making my way down, I saw a couple trying to climb up and the girl was just going around and around. Her boyfriend said she'd been going around in circles for 5 minutes....mad how the scrambling and slippery rocks can tip you over the edge! He was trying to push her up and she was having none of it. It was super windy and a bit cold when we sat down for lunch but the views were panoramic and the weather held out.

We retraced our steps to head back down the path we came. I stopped to pick up a rock on the way back down because it's a habit my dad has. He takes it home and writes the date and name of the mountain on it. I stepped down a not-particularly-slippery bit and then fell over like the clumsy hiker I am. Luckily, no one had noticed until I started chuckling hysterically as I was lagging behind because I stopped to fill my pockets with rocks.

It wasn't super steep and wasn't too muddy until we got to the bottom and had to traipse through the bog back to the car park. To be fair, Tim gave us an option of doing some extra mileage and taking a drier path, but by this point our boots were already soaked and covered in mud, we didn't see the point in trying to stay dry.

All in all, an awesome day for a walk up the Glyders! It wasn't very long but can be really hard to navigate in bad weather (or even fair weather that suddenly deteriorates) so I wouldn't recommend it without GPS, OS maps, a compass and good map reading skills! Or alternatively, find yourself a walker familiar with the area and get them to take you! Tim takes all the stress out of hiking in Snowdonia because you never feel panicked and lost and it's certainly nice to just follow a group confident in the knowledge someone else definitely knows where you're going.

The Cantilever Stone - I really felt it may collapse if I stood right on the end, but it held up!