Glyder Fawr and Glyder Fach mean ‘Great Pile’ and ‘Little Pile’ respectively, though there is little to choose between them. Glyder Fach is, if anything, the more rugged peak – a wild, chaotic plateau of gesticulating boulders crowned with two mighty tors. Glyder Fawr is marginally tamer; no less dramatic, yet very different. Its vast stony dome, littered with leafy, spiky quivers of rock, recalls the tor country of the NW Carneddau and has a curious beehive appearance when approached from Glyder Fach. In mist, or moonlight, both tops generate a weird, eerie atmosphere as their huge monoliths pierce the gloom.
To tramp the lofty tableland between these two giants is a unique experience. So let me give you a brief guided tour starting from 659584 which is where the top of Bristly Ridge and the path from Llyn y Caseg-fraith both mount the plateau. A cairned path is just discernible, steering a course on 230° through the rocky debris. It passes N of one massive pile (on the W side of which is the famous cantilever) before skirting N of a second even larger pile which is the (cairnless) top. It becomes difficult here to distinguish the cairns from the all-pervading bouldery waste, so follow the tell-tale sign of eroded, reddish sand until the cairns reassert themselves.
Directly ahead is the rearing citadel of Castell y Gwynt, a dark slabby pyramid of teetering rocks that only lacks distance from its neighbours to be accorded peak status itself. Rock-hounds will enjoy an easy scramble over the top while the path weaves round to the S. At 653582 a large cairn marks the top of the Bwlch y Ddwy Glyder route S (GL5) while the main path swings W to groove through a grassy bank, slightly below the edge, before climbing up to the bare, desiccated scalp of Glyder Fawr and its flaky spires.
The cantilever rock on Glyder Fach (GL 1)
In clear weather it is best to abandon the path immediately after bypassing Castell y Gwynt and walk along the edge for a while. The view back to Castell y Gwynt, flanked by Glyder Fach’s shattered front of buttresses, gullies and terraces, is impressive to say the least! Soon comes a cairn signalling the top of Y Gribin; then Seniors Ridge breaches the skyline while all the time the gaze is fed by a sweeping panorama of Bochlwyd and Idwal, Tryfan and Bristly Ridge, the long sinuous line of the N Glyders and the smooth lines of the Carneddau. With luck you should be able to pick out five of Wales’ most famous valleys or passes: Nantgwynant, Llanberis, Nant Ffrancon, Ogwen, and even a peep of Conway. Only to the S is the tension relieved in the blue haze of endless ranges rolling on and on: Arenigs, Arans, Rhinogs, Cader Idris, Plynlimon…
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.
Note If the car park by Ogwen cottage is full you could set out from one of the other parking areas or laybys along the lake’s N shoreline, though you then have a damp cross-country trek with little in the way of an established path to reach Bochlwyd.
Tryfan is awesome in its severity, its W face scree path revealed in distressing clarity. R is the serrated Gribin ridge, backed by Y Garn, impassive as always. Behind you is the heathery bulk of Pen yr Ole Wen, ahead the untrodden solitude of Cwm Bochlwyd (Valley of the Grey Cheek) squeezed between the stupendous, broken cliffs of Glyder Fach and Castell y Gwynt.
On resuming the track climbs above the E shoreline. After 100yd a faint path tiptoes away L for the col between Tryfan’s S and far S peaks (GL36). The main track trends L to cross the high-level pass of Bwlch Tryfan near a brace of stiles over a wall at 662588. In season this is a major crossroads. Tryfan’s S ridge is L, Bristly Ridge R and, straight ahead, the greeny-brown marshes of Cwm Tryfan. The miners’ track continues SE, the way never in doubt. It curls round the headwall of Cwm Tryfan, beneath the screes of Bristly Ridge, in scenery that is never less than riveting, and breasts the spongy saddle of Bwlch Caseg-fraith at 667583. Only a 750ft grind remains, up a well-cairned path that grows stonier and rockier with every step.
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.
Walkers wishing to short-circuit the miners’ track but not relishing Bristly Ridge could attempt the scree run that sweeps down to Bwlch Tryfan beneath its E battlements (GL2,1). However this is a brute, loose and slithery all the way.
Y Gribin (GL3)
See GL9.
Tryfan from near Llyn Caseg-fraith (GL 4)
Bwlch y Ddwy Glyder route (N) (GL4)
Remember that the word ‘bwlch’, which frequently does indicate a pass, more accurately means ‘gap’ or ‘defile’. Never truer than here!
I give this route for four reasons. It is ‘there’; it is direct (aggressively so); it is unfrequented, wild and rugged; it has magnificent close-up views of Glyder