North Wales, Day 3 - Y Garn, Coed Y Brenin (Nuttall, Snowdonia).

Updated: Oct 3, 2020

25.4.19 - Y Garn 629m

This was just a quick hike to get a Nuttall out of the way before the rain came in. It starts just North of Dolgellau on the A470 is a car park in the trees opposite the Twyn Y Groes Hotel. The car park is large and there are toilets but they were shut when I was there.

To start cross over the bridge and turn left (SW) on a path that takes you back to the A470. Just across the road to the right is an UC road that heads steeply up Bryn Melyn Forest. I ended up in Bryn Melyn woods and wasn’t paying attention so went deeper than I should have but it was nice. Anyway I came out eventually at a bridge over Nant Las.

Now there are a myriad ways to get to the top of the Garn but I headed to the obvious disused mine (S) and headed up from there. Follow my GPX trail up and you won’t go far wrong. Where it crosses any fence or wall then you will find either a style or a gap in the wall. You will end up at contour 450 where you will follow a fence NW for a couple of kms before you head up and SW for the summit cairn. All of this is pretty steep and mainly on either sheep trail or the occasional reasonable footpath, it’s all okay though. The views are lovely especially of the surrounding Rhinogs which looked inviting.

Coming back down the rain had set in and it was pretty stinking so I just followed my nose taking in some detours as I felt like but loosely followed my up route. When I did get to the forest though I took the first trail on the right which was much nicer than the way up.

Route Summary: Forest and high mountain, not craggy and with no distinct footpaths as such bar along fences and walls. Nice views.

Route Statistics: 9.3kms with 600m of height gain done in a wet 3hrs 15mins.

GPX files: For gpx files go to the Peakbagger website by following this link and go to the bottom right hand of the page and click ‘Download this GPS track as a GPX file.’

Ascent Entry: Y Garn