The Eryri National Park Authority, the body that manages the park, publishes no access notice for the Arans. The Cwm Cywarch route takes the signed footpath from the Cwm Cywarch car park, past Blaencywarch farm.
Mark Horrell, a UK mountaineering writer, writes that the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 made the old access restrictions on the Arans irrelevant. The Act made open hill land access land.
The Cwm Cywarch circuit is 7.5 miles (12 km) and takes around 5 hours.
That is the account of the Mawddwy Walking Paths, a set of walks built by volunteers from a Dinas Mawddwy social enterprise, and it calls the walk strenuous.
Start at the Cwm Cywarch car park
The start is the car park at the head of Cwm Cywarch, a valley reached from Dinas Mawddwy.
The Mawddwy Walking Paths describe it as a free National Park car park, with toilets, at grid reference SH852188.
To reach it, drive from Dinas Mawddwy to the village of Abercywarch. At the sign for Cwm Cywarch, turn left onto the single-track lane.
The car park is at the very end of the valley, just before the final farm. The lane is 2.5 miles long, and the account says it feels longer.
The route to the summit
Times are from the car park.
- Take the signed footpath to the right of the Blaencywarch farm buildings.
- After about 300 m, where the wall on your left ends, turn left uphill over a stile on a signed footpath. Cross a wooden footbridge.
- Follow the right side of a stream all the way to the col (the high pass between two hills). This takes 1 to 1½ hours.
- At the col, a fence line runs from left to right. Turn right and follow it.
- Go round the boggy sections where you need to. Old planking over them can be very slippery.
- After a final steep section, cross another fence joining from the right onto the summit plateau. The summit is 400 m ahead, marked with a triangulation point (a survey pillar). The account puts you there after around 3 hours.
Around 3 hours up, and around 5 hours for the whole circuit.
The same account says a map and compass, and the skills to use them, are essential.
This matters most when the weather is anything less than perfect.
The summit
Aran Fawddwy is 905 m, according to the Mawddwy Walking Paths and to go4awalk, an independent UK walking-route website.
Mark Horrell calls it the highest mountain in southern Snowdonia. His March 2026 trip report says the Aran hills form a ridge 14 km long, from Bala Lake to Dinas Mawddwy.
On top, the pillar stands on the east side of a large cairn.
The cairn is up to 16 m across and up to 4 m high, according to Coflein, the Welsh national record of historic sites.
The Mawddwy Walking Paths describe it as a Bronze Age cairn.
Expect a survey pillar, and very little shelter. Mud and Routes, an independent UK hillwalking route website, says the summit has a trig point but little in the way of a shelter.
Coming down past Drws Bach
From the summit, retrace your steps for 300 m. Then bear left over rocky ground to pick up the fence you crossed earlier, and follow it downhill.
The Mawddwy Walking Paths mention views down to Creiglyn Dyfi.
You then pass a memorial at Drws Bach (Little Door). The memorial is for a mountain rescue team member, Mike Aspain, killed by lightning at that spot in 1960. Mud and Routes gives this account.
After that the route crosses the broad summit of Drysgol.
At Drysgol, bear right along the head of Hengwm for about 600 m, down beside a fence to a flat area before Waun Goch.
There a broad track leads diagonally down the side of Hengwm to the valley floor.
Longer days from the same valley
Other accounts give longer routes. Each figure below belongs to its own route, so none of them is a version of the 7.5 mile circuit.
- Over Glasgwm: Mud and Routes gives 15.2 km, 1,015 m of ascent and 6 hours, rated Hard Walk. It starts at Fawnog Fawr, grid reference SH 853 184.
- A long round: go4awalk gives 12 miles (19 km), 1,234 m of ascent and 8½ hours, graded Hard.
Mud and Routes lists the hazards on its Glasgwm route as wet and boggy ground, with sections of pathless navigation.
The long ridge north to Aran Benllyn
The ridge continues north to Aran Benllyn, 885 m according to go4awalk. The ridge from the north is a longer day with its own start, at Llanuwchllyn.
The start is the National Park car park at Llanuwchllyn, grid reference SH879 297, as Mud and Routes gives it. The two accounts describe different routes from Llanuwchllyn:
- Mud and Routes: 23.17 km, 1,202 m of ascent, 8 hours.
- go4awalk: 10.5 miles (17 km), 998 m of ascent, 7 hours, graded Hard. Its route runs from Llanuwchllyn over Aran Benllyn and Erw y Ddafad-ddu to Aran Fawddwy.
The ridge walk is a different day, not a longer version of the Cwm Cywarch circuit.
If you are visiting more of Eryri, Cadair Idris, Rhinog Fawr and Arenig Fawr each have their own route.
We compile and explain public route and safety information. We guide nobody and sell nothing on the hill.
For the shorter day, go back to the Cwm Cywarch circuit: 7.5 miles, around 5 hours, and the signed footpath from the car park.
