The Welsh 15, Leg 2: The Glyderau Epic
- bootsandbanter
- Jul 16
- 6 min read
Updated: Oct 1
800 metres of soul-crushing climb, scree hell, magical rocks, and the sacred birth of trekking pole love
🧗 Elidir Fawr – The Yo-Yo Begins
Let’s talk numbers.
We had just descended from Snowdon’s 1,085 m summit all the way down to about 108 m in Nant Peris.
And now, we were heading up to Elidir Fawr (924 m).
Over 800 metres of pure, soul-sapping ascent. Straight from lunch break into leg-day purgatory.
It was a never-ending climb — steep, humid, and leg-shattering. It wasn’t steep in an aggressive way — it was just constant. Step after step. Quiet. Humid. No wind.
This was the kind of climb where your mind starts asking bold philosophical questions like:
Are we still going up?
Is this peak mythical?
Should I just become a rock and stay here forever?
We started this section with a new guide (one swapped out at Nant Peris), and were told it would take 7.5 hours. Before we even started the ascent to Elidir Fawr, he said:
“Find your own pace.” “You need to switch your brain off for the next hour and a half.”
I hoped he was exaggerating. Deep down, I knew he wasn’t.
This was where I understood exactly what he meant. If you thought about how much height you had left, it would break you. So you don't. You just kept moving. Poles planted. One more step.
And for the first time, that number 7.5 hours didn’t sound dramatic — it sounded about right. The mountain wasn’t even trying to pretend to be kind.
⛰️ Y Garn – Crib Goch Watching from Across the Valley
From Elidir Fawr, we carried on to Y Garn.
Between the two peaks, the clag lifted just enough for one brief, beautiful moment.
We caught a glimpse of Crib Goch from across the valley.
It looked utterly imposing. Majestic. Unhinged. From that angle, seeing where we’d already been, it felt surreal. Like watching a version of yourself from the outside.
I paused and thought, Did we really just cross that?
And then the cloud rolled back in. Curtains down.
We stopped briefly on Y Garn — maybe 10 minutes max. No views.
🏔️ Glyder Fawr – Scree Slope Therapy
We descended Y Garn and had a brief stop at the lake Llyn y Cwm.
We were "admiring" what was next.
That hideous, very visible, very prominent scree slope leading to Glyder Fawr. That slope deserves its own therapy session.
You couldn’t miss it. You also couldn’t love it.
Every step planted firmly to make sure you do not skid back. The kind of climb that makes you question your hobby choices.
Nothing but scree. No grand view waiting.
Just legs burning and an internal soundtrack of “Why am I like this?” 😂
The only joy came from the fact that you couldn’t see the top — so there was no proof that the mountain even ended. 🥴
🪨 Glyderau Plateau – Otherworldly Quiet
After the summit of Glyder Fawr, we hit the Glyderau plateau — scattered with boulders, giant rock formations, jagged shapes and that out-of-time feeling, kind of quiet that feels not quite of this Earth. Otherworldly is the only word for it.
The Glyderau really do feel like another planet. No real path. Just rock, rock, and more rock. It was beautiful in a bleak, surreal kind of way. Like we’d crossed into some ancient land where only goats and the occasional deranged hiker dare roam.
We moved steadily through it.
🧗 Glyder Fach – The Descent That Woke Me Up
We ditched our backpacks at the bottom of Glyder Fach like fed-up toddlers ditching school bags and made our way up to the actual summit.
No gentle path, no neat trail — just precarious, massive boulders everywhere, the kind that looked like a dragon 🐉had dropped them there a few thousand years ago and never bothered tidying up.
Summit first, bags later.
And then came the descent off Glyder Fach.
We went down the north side, and I’m telling you now:
It was steep.
It was loose scree mixed with solid rock sections.
It required a proper head for heights.
I’d ascended that way before, but descending it felt entirely different. It was engaging, tricky, and definitely required focus.
It wasn’t scary — but it was serious.
One wrong step and things would’ve gone very wrong.
I liked it.
🧗 Tryfan – Scramble Joy, Man-Made Misery
Tryfan – South Ridge Joy, West Face Grade 1-2 Descent.
With the rocky moonscape behind us, it was time to climb Tryfan via the South Ridge.
And I loved it.
By now, the skies had cleared properly and visibility was spot on.
It felt like a reward after all the clag earlier.
The South Ridge was a brilliant mix of walking and scrambling over solid, grippy rocks and boulders. Everything I needed — rocks, boulders, hands-on movement, proper mountain fun.
It was engaging, technical, fun. This was my zone.
And then… the descent. We came down the West Face of Tryfan — a Grade 1 or 2 scramble. I’d done it before going up, but this was my first time descending it. And despite the steepness, I loved that too.
What I didn’t love?
🪜 The Never-Ending Steps
The man-made stone steps.
I remembered this feeling from four years ago — only then I was walking up them.
This time it was same misery in reverse.
They just went on forever.
🥣 Ogwen Valley (A5) – Food, Spork, and Dropout #1
We reached the A5 crossing at Ogwen at around 18:30 for a proper food stop — and I was ravenous. The exhaustion had finally caught up with my stomach.
And miracle of miracles — one of the guides in the support vehicle handed me a spork. I could have cried.
I demolished 🥄:
2 John West tuna pasta pots
A banana
Several handfuls of “whatever snacks I could grab”
My sense of shame
I wasn’t forcing food down anymore. This was real hunger — the kind where you don’t chew, you inhale.
Also: one of the men in the group dropped out at this point. His legs were done. And no one blamed him.
We were only two legs in. It already felt like we'd done a full challenge.
⏱️ Reality Check: What’s Next
At the A5 stop, one of the guides laid it out for us:
"You’ve got about 8 hours left. Over 20 km. Finishing around 2:00 AM."
Hearing it said out loud felt brutal. It was still early evening. It didn’t feel like midnight was even close, let alone 2:00 AM.
I even checked my watch in slight disbelief — we’d done 26 km. It was just after 18:30 PM. And it hit me:
We weren’t nearly finished.
We were only halfway.
It was hard to process.
You could see it on people’s faces — eyes widened, a quiet kind of shock settling in. The idea that we’d done so much already… and yet we had just as much left.
I remember sitting on a grass patch in the carpark, munching on something and mentally trying to block those numbers. If I’d focused on them too much, it would’ve felt impossible. We were all tired already — physically, mentally, everything.
But there wasn’t really a choice.
For me.
🧠 Reflection
This leg was absolutely brutal — physically harder than the first, by far.
That 800 m climb to Elidir Fawr after the deep descent from Snowdon?
The scree slope up Glyder Fawr?
The vertical loose slope down Glyder Fach?
The mental challenge of the unending terrain?
The descent off Tryfan and its “just one more step” hell-steps?
It was all a lot. But I was still moving. Still going. My poles were with me. My knees were holding. And mentally?
I wasn’t broken yet.
But I could feel the fatigue. Deep now.
And I knew the Carneddau was next.
⛰️ Peaks Bagged – Leg 2: The Glyderau
Elidir Fawr – 924 m
Y Garn – 947 m
Glyder Fawr – 1,001 m
Glyder Fach – 994 m
Tryfan – 918 m
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