From early morning- and continuing when we started today’s walk at about 9 am- it was bucketing it down: proper Welsh torrential rain. But luckily within half and hour or so of starting we only had short bursts of rain , generally when we entered low cloud, and were able to enjoy another superb day of largely dry weather for walking. The ground, of course, was sodden.
The day’s walk to Bethesda from Capel Curig took us about seven hours, including a stop for lunch, a total of 13 miles. It was shorter and, on the whole, a lot easier than the previous day, with one notable exception, more of which later.
The first highlight was the long valley heading north west out of Capel Curig ( marked as Nant y Benglog on OS maps). This was an easy walk along a level surfaced path, with great views along the length of the valley and with low level white cloud drifting by.
We then crossed the main road, the A5, and climbed a little around a farm to reach the northern side of Llyn Ogwen. As we walked above the lake the views became increasingly dramatic, while the path became increasingly boggy and rocky, which after the heavy rain of the night and morning made it very slippery.
Although in reality the distance alongside the lake is probably not much more than a mile, because of the need to watch every step, we took our time.
The last part before the road was a real struggle, as the stony path became first a stream, and then a boulder field, with bog in between, and at the end, high steps up and down around a slab of slippery slate .
After a lunch stop at the National Trust cafe at Idwal cottage, we followed the lane ahead soon arriving at the head of the Nant Ffrancon valley where there are spectacular views ahead. You gradually descend to the left, and can also see the dark and rugged views back towards the mountains to the east.
Again, as with the start of today’s walk, this was easy walking, downhill on a lane. You could only imagine how the valley has been carved out of the landscape by a long melted glacier. To our right you could also just make out the A5, which seemed diminutive alongside the magnificent mountains of Carnedd Dafydd and Carnedd Llewelyn.
As the valley flattens out, we saw what looked like a small spoil heap of slate. As it turned out, this was just the start of an enormous series of such heaps, towering to our left for much of the way to Bethesda, where we caught a bus to Bangor for the night.
Across the Alps to the Adriatic 