Even though I really hate the regular 4 hour drive down to Oxford, North Wales is a damned fine place to live. In addition to an abundance of rock climbing and bouldering (the reason I moved up here about a year ago), the hiking, running and scrambling1 opportunities are plentiful.
Here is an example. The sun was out on Friday, so I decided to take the afternoon off (oh, the benefits of working remotely). I began by running from my place in Dinorwig through the slate quarries and down to Nant Peris. I then ran along the Llanberis Pass road for another mile or so until I reached the base of a classic scramble called Bryant’s Gully.
Being a gully, and being in North Wales, there was quite a bit of water, and my waterproof socks weren’t quite up to the challenge of keeping any part of me dry. After only a few minutes I was soaked from head to toe, but was loving every minute of it.
The gully becomes less well defined near the top, so finding a safe route through the loose rock and scree took some time. But I eventually found myself on the Esgair Felen ridge, heading up towards Glyder Fawr, the highest point in the Glyders (the range between the Llanberis and Ogwen valleys).
From here I ran along the top of the western end of the Glyders, heading over Y Garn, skirting around Foel-goch and Mynydd Perfedd, and then up to the top of Elidir Fawr right on sunset.
From this point all that lay between me and a cold beer was a 700 metre descent down the South-West slopes of Elidir Fawr and through the quarries, back home.
All in all I feel pretty lucky to be able to do things like this from my house in an afternoon.
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Scrambling is low grade rock climbing which can often be done in hiking or running shoes. I’ve really gotten into it since moving to North Wales, because it allows me to combine trail running with climbing, and there are loads of scrambles which can easily be done in a couple of hours from my house. ↩