Y Garn (the one by Dolgellau) Circular

Walk: A circular walk taking in the summit of Y Garn in the southern Rhinogau

Distance: Approx.10 miles

Parking: Ty'n y Groes Carpark just off the A470 Trawsfynydd to Dolgellau Road

Bus: Not applicable on this one, its a circular walk from the car back to the car

Although this doesn't include a bus trip, it certainly qualifies for BusPassNBoots as 'a walk on paths seldom trodden'. The walk starts and ends at the Ty'n y Groes Car park opposite the Tyn y Groes hotel about 3 miles out of Dolgellau - heading north up the main road (A470) to Trawsfynydd. Once parked, you head directly (or at least as directly as you can) up the wonderful 625m peak of Y Garn. Not to be confused with the more famous (and certainly more popular) 3000-footer which overlooks Cwm Idwal some 20 miles to the north.

Although not as high, the position of our peak at the south western end of the unspoilt Rhinogau has a lot going for it in my book. Firstly, hardly anyone comes up here, so you have this epic landscape pretty much to yourself. Secondly, the views once you reach the top are to die for. I love this part of the Eryri National Park (Snowdonia). If things couldn't get better, the return route of this circular walk takes in the epic New Precipice Walk, high above the picturesque Mawddach Estuary, which then leads on to a section of the historic (Roman) route of Sarn Helen, and, in between these two, it even includes an excellent wild swimming spot ( if that sort of thing floats your bum).

The Ty'n y Groes car park is free and has free loos on site too. It can be found across a bridge on the east side of the A470 main road about 3 miles or so from Dolgellau, heading toward Trawsfynydd. The car park is popular with mountain bikers and those exploring Coed y Brenin on foot. When we were there, there were some vans that had obviously overnighted, but there was still space. Even if it's full though, there is further parking in a layby on the opposite side of the main road, just north of the Tyn y Groes Hotel.

Out of the carpark you go back toward the main road. There is a footpath, immediately after the bridge, on the left through a gate. This takes you up to the bus-stop on the main road at which point you can cross the road (to the aforementioned lay-by) and by going left or right, make your way up to the lane that goes uphill to the right of a row of terraced stone cottages above you.

Follow this lane quite steeply uphill passing the gate (on your left), signposted to a National Trust Property, from which you'll exit on the way back. What you are now looking for (about 1km further up the lane, just after a stone barn building) is a stile, set back across a green verge area with a small wooden bench alongside it. Cross the stile and follow the footpath uphill (over at least one more stile/gate).

Eventually, you will arrive at a wooden gate opposite which is small, very thick walled (industrial type) stone building (derelict). This area was mined for gold and other minerals. Our route goes up past some of the diggings and 'barracks' that those working the mines stayed in to reduce the commuting time to work. No podcasts or audiobooks in those days. Go through the gate and turn left onto the track/path in front of the derelict building.

Continue left (south) on this track for about 400m, mostly contouring but trending slightly uphill, passing some more derelict stone buildings and evidence of mine workings, until the track turns sharply right uphill (away from the signed footpath).

Even though it is not signed, take the track (that takes you at right angles to the wall shown here), not the signed footpath that takes you alongside the wall! This track is the start of the footpath up Y Garn.

A little higher, you'll see some yellow-topped posts up to the left - I think these mark some form of boundary for the mine workings. Anyway, don't be tempted toward them, just stay on the track and continue uphill. You'll know you are on the right track as there are fenced off mine workings (clefts) cut into the rock on your right and small stone heaps with a variety of spoil, including quartz, scattered around.

Keeping on the track, moving uphill, you will eventually reach a more traditional 'lord-of-the rings-type' mine entrance (fenced off), with some small derelict stone buildings opposite. These are the miner's 'barracks'. The photo here is looking back down onto the building from a little bit further up the path. There are at least 3 dwellings (with fireplaces) in a terraced row with another room (looks like it was unheated) mid-terrace. MMM (My Mate Martin) who accompanied us on this walk and I puzzled what this other room might be but didn't come up with anything sensible. Storeroom or workshop possibly. Rosie wasn't bothered. Industrial heritage definitely isn't her thing. Tough Cookies those miners. I think these little landmarks that evidence their presence here in this landscape are fab. They've left me wanting to know more.

Digression alert: If you haven't yet been to the Dinorwic Slate Museum in Llanberis, it is well worth the trip. The derelict 'Anglesey Barracks' that form two sides of a 'Street', in the middle of the slate workings, high above the lake and other museum buildings, are as atmospheric as hell. It's hard not to be transported to the buzz of the Welsh voices of the past, with the miners sitting outside in summer, after a gruelling days work underground, eating their no-doubt meagre sustenance, yet sharing songs and laughs and companionship despite (or probably because of) the hardship of their lives and distance from their loved ones. I love that place. The rest of the museum is excellent as well.

After the small barracks here on our route, the footpath becomes a little less distinct but still followable as you work your way uphill, away from the ruins. After a short distance, the path levels out a bit and makes a right turn heading towards the upper of two obvious gaps in the stone wall ahead (near to where another wall, coming from above joins it at right angles). Once through the wall, the path continues uphill alongside the other wall (on your left) with a small rocky step about half way up that Rosie climbed by skittering her back legs, running on the spot, until her back paws gained some traction on the slab. Can't help smiling at her enthusiasm and tenacity.

Eventually, you come to quite a large ladder stile. Once over that, it is a case of just going uphill, following the indistinct path where you can find it until you see the upright stone that marks the summit. That is the summit in the centre distance on this photo.

Once there, the vista that your peak has been hiding opens up ahead of you to the west. The Rhinogs to the north, the rest of the Rhinogau peaks (Diffwys etc) undulating off west before turning south west toward Barmouth and the sea, the northern flanks of Cader Idris to the south but what draws the eye, and holds it, is the stunning mouth of the Mawddach Estuary to the southwest. B.E.A.utiful.

That view of the estuary gets bigger (well, it doesn't get bigger, you just get closer, just like the classic Father Ted scene off the telly) as you descend slightly southeast, then south toward the broad ridge ahead of you, a small ridgetop lake, and toward Foel Ddu (the slight 'up' in the otherwise falling ridgeline). The ridge is that which is to the left in this photo.

I've done this twice now and both times I have followed the wall (to my right), crossing various stiles until coming to a bit that drops steeply, still with the wall on your right.

Both times I've continued along the wall shown in this picture (like the majority of the few others who do this route, I suspect) only to find that you have to go left at the bottom, across some boggy land, to find the proper route that is several hundred meters closer to the ridgeline, to the left. No great problem since they invented waterproof boots.

Once back on track (if you made the same mistake as I did), the proper path heads toward Foel Ispri (the small peak ahead on this photo) by exiting through a gate in the wall on the left of the photo, turning slightly right and the going through the gap in the wall ahead.

The route back takes in the impressive New Precipice Walk and to get onto that at its beginning you need to keep on the path to the right (west) of the small peak of Foel Ispri.

Once over the brow, the estuary feels close enough to touch. The land here is a bit more scrubby than it has been higher up with multiple ways through a variety of scrubby trees and ferns. Follow the yellow topped posts as best you can, then through a gate into a field that you will find has a small stone barn on the left. Pick up the track that feeds from the building and heads west alongside a low wall with a fence on top until it gently zig zags down to the dwellings and barns at Foel Ispri Uchaf not far below.

Once in front of the property, the access gate to the new Precipice walk is to the left. You can recognise it as it has an old railway-line barely 10cm above the ground to act as a barrier if you are brave enough to be directing your wheelchair along the first part (easy access bit) of what used to be some sort of level tramway used to get the ore from the mine workings along here. It is a beautiful bit of track. We met our first people since we'd left the car park here. Two Americans who were heading toward Trawsfynydd on their walking route from Machynlleth to Conwy. Heading west at this point, they seemed to be going the long way around but you really couldn't fault the scenery or their tenaciousness.

The track contours high above the Mawddach Estuary heading back inland toward Dolgellau. It is more than just a tad breath-taking. Eventually the rail peters out and the track starts to descend past an old stone building and toward a stile that gives entrance to the forest below. Go over the stile and continue down on the well defined path between the trees. At some point, after several hundred meters, a lake (Llyn Tan y Graig) appears to your left, the footpath then turns to find its way through the ferns that cover the southerly lake side.

Right at the extreme south east corner are two access points to this wonderfully clear and, if I remember correctly, relatively warm water for a swim. The furthest one has rocky steps to get in so you don't even get dirty feet on the way out. Rosie went furry dipping but with a thin south westerly still making it presence felt, the less furry ones of us sat it out. Last time I did this walk it was a windless 24 degrees, in September, and the swim was a very welcome respite. Really nice place.

The next target is to join a section of the Sarn Helen trail that heads back toward where the car is parked. Sarn Helen is a route/road built and used by the Romans to travel between Camarthen in South Wales and their fort at Canovium just south of Conwy. The leg we joined heads toward the Roman fortress at Tomen y Mur near Trawsfynydd. As was their custom, they took a much more direct route than our American cousins seemed to have planned.

To get onto Sarn Helen from the lake, keep heading east beyond the end of the lake and then turn south on a footpath through the ferns that ends up at an access point to a field with the forest on the left. Follow the footpath down this side of the field to a gate at the bottom. Keep following it over a pedestrian bridge and up past a house until you reach a tarmac lane that heads down toward the village of Llanelltyd below. Go down the lane until, just before the first house of the village proper, you see a footpath sign onto a path on the left. This is Sarn Helen - sometimes a path, sometimes a track (although there is no signposting to say so). It's difficult to go wrong now for several miles as, where there is a choice, Sarn Helen is always the track or path that stays contouring the valley (albeit high up), not the one that heads inland.

The fact that it stays high up is great as you are afforded some pleasant views when it isn't in the trees and also some pleasingly exposed bits that must have raised the heart rate of the Roman carters with a valuable cargo and a cart and ox that hadn't been MOTed for a while. Route finding goes swimmingly well until, just over a mile from where the car is parked, you approach the remote property at Hafod-y-fedw. Our path does an unexpected (and certainly not Roman) dogleg away from the property to join the drive that feeds the property. Once joined, follow the long drive away from the house, past another property, until it tips you out onto the top of a lane with several apparent options of where to go next.

There are footpaths signposted here but none of those signed go the way we need to go. Rather than get angry with any map or mapping tool you might be using, simply proceed through the un-signed metal gate on the left - which turns out to be one of the access drives to a rather pretty little National Trust property called Tyddyn Bach and actually gets you comfortably to where you need to go. The photograph is taken from the top of the lane where you exit the drive from Hafod-y-fedw. The drive is just over my (the photographer's!) left shoulder and the lane over my right shoulder. The metal gate you go through is that one more or less in the centre of the photo. That's MMM and Rosie in the shot.

Once through the gate follow the drive/track. It heads uphill slightly before bending around to the right, crossing a little stream and proceeds across pasture land until finally ending up at the front gate of the property called Tyddyn Bach. Here a sign (obviously missing from the metal gate at the head of the drive) directs you through the garden of the house to a similar gate and clearly a more-used access drive at the rear. If people are in residence you can also just go around to the left of the house and walled garden to get on the drive the other end without passing unduly alarming the residents. The track the other end is the final leg of the trip. Follow the track down through the trees (you can ignore the footpath signs encouraging you to take a narrower route (which is the continuation of the Sarn Helen route) to the left). Whether you take the smaller path staying high or continue down the track you end up on the lane you started off on. By not diverting back off onto Sarn Helen, you just end up a bit lower down. Turn right onto the lane heading down to the lay-by on the A470. Cross the road to the bus stop, pick up the footpath to the bridge and cattle grid and you are back at the Ty'n y Groes car park and toilets.

Rosie had a quick swim in the river here before we got in the car and headed home.

This is not a very good walk, it's an excellent one.