Meg and I have been aiming to fit in a few more short breaks this year. Its easy to underestimate how beneficial it is to spend two or three days away from home exploring a new area, even if the weather is grim. Last weekend we headed up to Tan-y-grisiau in the south of Snowdonia National Park for three days of hiking and relaxation.

We’d originally considered heading up Snowdon(Yr Wyddfa in Welsh) but there being so many other peaks in the national park, the decision was made to give it a miss in favour of the queiter and less travelled local routes.

We based this 8 Mile loop on a guide from our host but with a few tweaks, namely avoiding traversing along an exposed ridge due to high winds. Its worth allowing 3.5 hours depending on the conditions, and giving time to find a sheltered spot to sit and snack. I know this makes me sound pretty elderly, but I can’t be going more than an hour without a cup of tea.

Beginning in the carpark on the south side of Cwmorthin Quarry we headed up and into the hills along a disused winching incline. This is steep and loose, and envokes images of Frodo and Sam carring The Ring into Mordor. or maybe thats just my inner nerd talking. Once passing though the quarry we traversed the edge of Moel Yr Hydd before looping back on ourselves and up to the summit of Moelwyn Mawr. At 770m its one of the higher summits in the Moelwynian and offers an incredible veiw on a clear day. We were facing some strong winds, making the final 100m to the summit more of a scramble in an effort to keep ourselves low and out of the worst of the gusts. The descent was a pretty wild slick grassy ‘bum slide’… I was glad to be wearing waterproof MTB trousers with a thick seat area! We joked that in future we should carry a couple of sturdy plastic bags for this sort of situation (Obviously being careful not to slide off a cliff or down a mine.) Owing to the wind we opted to loop back down and around towards Stwlan Dam, though on a more favourable day another option would be to follow the ridge south to Moelwyn Bach, and down to the dam from there.

From Stwlan we followed its access road back down to Cwmorthin. If roads have ever counted as works of art then this one certainly does. It’s marble smooth, and winds down from the dam with a series of back to back hairpins. I found myself wishing i’d taken a skateboard!

It’s worth noting that there are a few scrambles along the way, and it is steep and loose in places, but generally speaking we both agreed that its a 10/10 route which we would strongly recommend to anybody walking in the area.