From Ogwen, walkers can reach Glyder Fach by Bwlch Tryfan and the Miners’ Track, and scramblers by Bristly Ridge.
The summit is 994 metres (3,261 feet), according to the British Mountaineering Council (BMC). Even the walkers’ way ends with hands on rock at the top.
Bristly Ridge is a Grade 1 scramble. Save it for a dry day with little wind.
The summit and the Cantilever Stone
The BMC’s Welsh 3000s page lists Glyder Fach at 3,261 feet (994 m). That is over the 3,000 foot mark that gives the Welsh 3000s their name.
The OS Maps Glyderau route gives 994 m too, and so does Get Lost Mountaineering.
The top is a pile of large boulders with gaps between them.
According to Walking Britain, Glyder Fach is one of the few mountains where both hands and feet are needed to reach the very top. The highest block is a horizontal rock, rather like a miniature bridge.
Get Lost Mountaineering finds no cairn there, and says the rocks would be very slippery when wet.
As Walk up Snowdon warns, anything dropped between the boulders will disappear for good.
The Cantilever Stone is close by. Get Lost Mountaineering calls it a long balanced rock that many try to stand on.
Parking and the bus at Ogwen
The Eryri National Park Authority, which runs the small car park at the Ogwen Centre, has an Ogwen page. Read in October 2026, it says parking in the Ogwen valley is limited and spaces fill quickly at peak times.
Double yellow lines run along parts of the A5 at Ogwen, and parking on them is not permitted at any time. That includes the roadside and the pavement.
The same page says the TrawsCymru T10 bus links Bangor, Bethesda and Betws y Coed and stops at Ogwen. For the bus, it suggests parking at the football club in Bethesda.
A nine-seat Bws Ogwen bus runs between Bethesda and Ogwen.
The Ogwen Centre has public toilets. The OS Maps Glyderau route notes there are none at the top.
The walkers’ route by the Miners’ Track
The route, pieced together from the guides:
- From the small car park at Ogwen Cottage, take the well-made path heading south, as in Walking Britain’s circuit from Ogwen Cottage.
- After a few hundred yards, bear left and climb steadily to Llyn Bochlwyd.
- Continue up to Bwlch Tryfan, the col below Tryfan.
- Take the Glyders Miners’ Track, which links the col with the plateau east of Bristly Ridge. Get Lost Mountaineering says it crosses below the Glyder Fach cliffs.
This is not the Miners’ Track on Snowdon, which has its own page. This one runs between Bwlch Tryfan and the plateau, with a fork to Pen-y-Gwryd, per Mud and Routes.
The guides walk the track downhill, so none gives a time for it in ascent.
The track starts, per Mud and Routes, a few boulders down from the Cantilever Stone. The right fork leads to Pen-y-Gwryd, and a left fork leads down to Bwlch Tryfan.
Its warning is plain: make sure you turn left at the correct point.
Two of the three guides that mention the scree path beside Bristly Ridge steer away from it. Here is what each says:
- Walking Britain: its Ogwen Cottage circuit climbs “the steep loose path to the south of the famous Bristly Ridge”. The circuit of Glyder Fach and Glyder Fawr is 5.5 miles (8.9 km), with 2,485 feet (753 m) of ascent, about 5 hours, graded hard.
- Get Lost Mountaineering: its walk is dated 6 May 2016. It calls the descent beside the ridge “steep and now loose and dangerously eroded so cannot be recommended”.
- Mud and Routes: it describes “a scree path that drops alarmingly to the side of Bristly Ridge”. The longer Miners’ Track to Bwlch Tryfan “was the best route”.
Get Lost Mountaineering says the longer track is longer in distance “but not in time and certainly less hard on the knees”.
The track itself has had trouble. Walk up Snowdon’s notes, dated November 2018, say it “has some loose sections and has seen some landslips in recent years”. Parts had been washed away and were being rebuilt.
That guide followed the track the other way, round the head of Cwm Tryfan to Gwern Gof Uchaf and the A5.
Get Lost Mountaineering’s walkers’ circuit of the Glyders and Tryfan needs no climbing or scrambling. Hands are needed on Tryfan, and on parts of the path below the Devil’s Kitchen.
Bristly Ridge and what Grade 1 asks
Bristly Ridge is graded 1 by UK Scrambles, with some exposed sections but plentiful hand holds.
The approach is by Bwlch Tryfan. UK Scrambles says a stone wall runs up to the ridge: “follow it on the left side until the stile at the end”.
The ridge is reached through Sinister Gully, which it calls “more of a staircase with great holds all the way to the top”.
UK Scrambles names the slight down climb just before the Great Pinnacle as the hardest part. It calls the Great Pinnacle Gap probably the crux (the key difficulty of the route).
Its route figures are 3.88 km (about 2.4 miles), 554 m of elevation and 3 to 4 hours.
Walking Britain adds that the ridge is more easily done in ascent than descent.
The BMC’s guide to scrambling sets out the grades:
- Grade 1: essentially an exposed walking route. Most are relatively straightforward with many difficulties avoidable, typically attempted without ropes, and most walkers need no extra equipment.
- Grade 2: blurs the line between scrambling and rock climbing, usually with sections where a nervous scrambler would want a rope.
- Grade 3: often appears in climbing guides as a Moderate, the easiest climbing grade, and should only be tackled by the confident.
Even Grade 1 uses both hands and feet. The BMC’s explanation of the grades says all scrambling grades need a degree of rock climbing.
It also says UK scrambles run from 1 to 3, and the exact scale depends on the guidebook. The Grade 1 here is UK Scrambles’ grading.
Walk or scramble: the two routes side by side
| Walkers’ route | Bristly Ridge | |
|---|---|---|
| From Bwlch Tryfan | Miners’ Track | Wall to the stile, then Sinister Gully |
| Rock | Hands at the top block | Hands and feet |
| Grade | Path, a few easy scrambly steps | Grade 1 scramble |
Not in wind, and not on wet rock.
The BMC’s advice on scrambles was written for Tryfan’s north ridge. It starts from one point: like all scrambles, it is best kept for a decent day.
Rain can render the rock slippery. Low cloud adds extra spice to the navigational problems.
Strong gusts, the BMC says, mean walking and scrambling are tricky on occasions.
Get Lost Mountaineering advises a clear dry day with little wind for its walkers’ circuit. In winter it calls that circuit a very serious undertaking, where ice axe and crampons would be essential.
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Castell y Gwynt and the crossing to Glyder Fawr
Castell y Gwynt, the Castle of the Winds, is 972 m by the BMC’s list. It is a rock outcrop on the ridge between Glyder Fawr and Glyder Fach.
Get Lost Mountaineering calls it a very substantial outcrop, well worth a visit, with some very large boulders to clamber over. It can be avoided by losing some height and rejoining the crest.
Walking Britain calls it a spiky rock formation whose scrambling is an optional extra.
Castell y Gwynt can be climbed over or bypassed.
Walk up Snowdon describes the plateau between the two Glyders as clear, with occasional cairns. In misty conditions it says you may well need to take a bearing.
The height of Glyder Fawr depends on the guide. The BMC and the OS Maps Glyderau route give 1,001 m, and Get Lost Mountaineering gives 999 m.
The scree down to Llyn y Cwn is the hard part, and the guides agree:
- Walking Britain: the descent is the worst part of its walk. On its day the path was “treacherous”, made up of loose slippery scree.
- Walk up Snowdon: climbed from below, the scree is “steep, loose and largely unpleasant”, the worst of it around 150 vertical metres over 500 m.
Below Llyn y Cwn, the path leads down the Devil’s Kitchen to Cwm Idwal.
The paths down through those cliffs, says Adventure Smart Wales, can be very difficult to find in misty conditions or in darkness.
It describes the way from Llyn y Cwn: head down a shallow gully past a large cairn to a low wall with a wooden stile. Then turn sharp left, not straight on, because there is a huge drop there.
Which way down from Glyder Fach
Pick the way down at the summit, from the cloud, the wind and your legs.
- Back by Bwlch Tryfan. Take the Miners’ Track to the col, then the clear path past Llyn Bochlwyd to the start, as Walking Britain describes it. This is the longer track that Get Lost Mountaineering prefers to the scree.
- Down Y Gribin, for scramblers. UK Scrambles gives this descent from Glyder Fach: Gribin Ridge to Llyn Bochlwyd. A broken path then leads towards the car park and becomes more defined about halfway down.
- Over to Glyder Fawr and the Devil’s Kitchen. This is the OS Maps Llyn Idwal and the Glyders route taken the other way. It goes up the Devil’s Kitchen, over Glyder Fach and down past Llyn Bochlwyd: 8 miles (12.5 km), 5 to 6 hours, rated Medium.
The crossing asks for clear weather, because of the scree and the hidden turn above the Devil’s Kitchen.
If the cloud is down or the wind has risen, go back by the Miners’ Track to Bwlch Tryfan. If you cross to Glyder Fawr, take a bearing in mist and turn sharp left at the stile above the cliffs.
