Cnicht Circular. The Classic from Croesor
- daveatkinnerton
- Sep 18
- 12 min read
Updated: Sep 19
Walk: Up the SW ridge of Cnicht from Croesor and back down the slate trail through the atmospheric mine workings between Cnicht and Moelwyn Mawr before angling gently back down to the car park using the eastern flank of Cwm Croesor on what is now part of much-lauded Slate Trail
Distance: about 7 miles
Parking: The small car park at Croesor Village (with a donation box near its entrance). Small free toilet
Bus Route: Not applicable to this one
Cnicht had been laughing at me all summer. It's clearly visible (and shows its best side) from Harlech on the coast and from where it is only 13 miles by car to the start of the walk. A dodgy hip (soon to be in a bag on the clinical waste pile and replaced by a shiny new one) has somewhat marred the attraction of steep uphills this year (2025) but when MMM (My Mate Martin) was available for a day out in July, I could resist no more. Rosie (Spaniel) was off elsewhere with her doggy friend and the Minister for Holidays so she missed out on this one.
It's a much-loved mountain, sometimes called the 'Welsh Matterhorn'. Having seen the real Matterhorn from about the same distance I think that this is a bit of a giggle but from the south west it does look like a proper peaky mountain that instantly catches the eye. From all other angles it looks completely different. It stands largely on its own (its closest neighbours being the semi-detached mining-scarred Moelwyns (Mawr and Bach)).
Cnicht is different in many ways. It's name, rather than being seated in Welsh, was borrowed from a similar Anglo Saxon word that was later mutated to the English word Knight. It's a good name. It suits it.
The brilliant views of Yr Wyddfa and the rest of the Snowdon Horseshoe Peaks from the top seem almost within touching distance but at the same time they are worlds apart. The photo here shows the flanks of the Snowdon Massif poking out of the clouds during a temperature inversion from my last visit to the summit in January 2022. It's picturesque yet also brutal. Stunningly wild and lonely yet with an echo of the footfall of hobnail boots and the clunks and bangs of the bustling industry of yesteryear. I admit to being a fan.
This climb starts and ends in the village of Croesor where there is a small car park with a community donation box. Croesor is very-much best approached from the south west using the lane which cuts off the A4085, just after Garreg, about half way between Penrhyndeudraeth in the south and Beddgelert in the north. The alternative route from Tan-y-bwlch (south east) just isn't worth the hassle - despite what a sat-nav might think. Accessible from the car park (across a field) is a community cafe - well recommended by a neighbour of ours who did a similar walk to this one with Derek the BBC Wales Weatherman (the Weatherman Walks guy) earlier this year (for fun, not for telly - the telly episode was a few years ago).
The walk starts by exiting the car park to join the small lane you turned off. You can use the carpark entrance or the small bridge across the stream on the left hand side of the entrance as you come in to access it. Turn right on the lane and head up through the pleasant little village toward the church. Cnicht is omnipresent in your right-hand-side peripheral vision. After the church, the road becomes a track. A few hundred meters up the track, the route turns right, through a gate. It is helpfully signposted 'Cnicht', though, unless it is misty, that seems a little bit unnecessary as it sort of signposts itself.
Route finding on this part of the walk is very clear as the track is well defined and the ridge up which you ascend is obvious. It gets a bit more dodgy for the more featureless middle bit of the walk so having a map and compass is pretty much a must in poor visibility.
It isn't long before you reach the broad part of the ridge and get your first view of Cwm Croesor, the opposite slopes of which will provide the route back in a couple of hours time. The views on this side improve the higher up you go so I'll post a picture a bit later on in this post.
The views back south and west down the ridge and toward Porthmadog (the target of much of the slate that was extracted from this area) are also fine. I couldn't help looking out for ospreys. Not really their territory up here I expect but there are several occupied nesting sites on the grassed and wooded Glaslyn Plains below (in the middle distance on the photo here). I guess, as busy parents this time of year, the ospreys are mostly headed out the opposite direction, to the fishing grounds provided by the shallow waters of Afon Glaslyn and the estuary beyond. I've never seen an osprey in flight but, then again, I never will unless I look up every now and again will I?
Digression alert: If you like soap operas, you would love the Glaslyn Ospreys sagas, witnessed and recorded by volunteers at their small visitor centre alongside the Ffestiniog Railway near Pont Croesor. This year especially, the real-life storyline has been so full of endangered-species drama that it is deserving (nay, needing) of a full David Attenborough voice-over I reckon.
The storyline/voiceover for 2025 would most-likely have been something like this....
The 'resident' male Aran's journey back from Africa didn't go at all to plan. Nevertheless he battled through. He was very late, exhausted and injured, but driven on by the knowledge that Elen (his girl and resident female) would be waiting for him, slowly starving but stalwartly preparing and defending their nest, ready for his return. The returning females don't feed on reaching the nesting site, relying on their returning partner to bring them fish as they prepare the world for their forthcoming offspring.
Elen had indeed sat waiting for him, guarding the nest site for weeks and weeks and though becoming increasingly weak, determinedly spurning the attentions of various speculative males and stoutly driving away all other intruders from the nest site.
A young inexperienced male, Teifi, handsome but with all the bad manners and fickleness of youth had become particularly persistent. Eating his catch of fish close to the nest without sharing. Purposefully or inadvertently teasing Elen and laying a speculative claim to the territory.
Eventually, Elen came to the only conclusion possible, that her partner, Aran, wasn't coming back. It happens. The journey to and from Africa is a long one and there is much to go wrong. And she was starving. How was she to know that, against the odds, he had made it back and was just a few more days away, giving his all to get to her?
So, when Aran finally laid eyes on the nest in the near distance, Elen was there, but so was another male, Teifi. One last fight, one final effort, drive off the intruder, it would have to be done. But he was exhausted and starved and the newcomer was fit and well fed, and when the bell for the second round went, Aran realised he wasn't going to win this one, as did the onlooking Elen. He was spent. He needed food and rest to build up some reserves and to give himself a chance. Time wasn't on his side though. It was getting late in the season and Elen's need to breed was strong. For her, it must have feIt like it was Teifi or nothing. He was young and rude but he'd have to do. Her course was set...
If it was on telly, you'd want to see the next episode wouldn't you? But I need to end this digression and Glaslyn Ospreys have a whole website devoted to this, including pictures and videos of the 2025 cast. Just a google away.
End of digression.
Back to the walk. About two thirds of the way up the ridge there is a rock outcrop which appears, at first sight, to bar the way. As youths, when we climbed this ridge (in those days approaching from Nantmor in the west) we would climb this outcrop direct - the pure route as we would have seen it. Much more in keeping with the 'Welsh Matterhorn' billing and definitely back then the highlight of the walk. Luckily for the present day us, there is a nice little cheat path to the right hand side which MMM and I gladly took. Although it is relatively easy, it is still hands on in sections and a fall from here would certainly smart a bit.
Once up this bit, its a steady and pleasant plod following the rest of the ridge to the summit.
Looking to the right now, into Cwm Croesor, gives you a great view of most of the return route. Both sets of the slate quarries that will be visited are visible at the head of the cwm. On the right hand side of this photograph can be seen the workings of the Croesor Quarry with the start of the final descent back to Croesor angling down from the top of the spoil heap. At the head of the cwm (Bwlch y Rhosydd) is the more extensive area of the Rhosydd Quarry. The keen eyed will also pick out the scars of the extremely steep inclines ending up at the bottom of the cwm from both sides. Both feeding the precious slate to the horse-drawn Croesor tramway that wound its way down the floor of the valley. Grand scale engineering to get the extracted wares to Porthmadog for shipping to homes, graveyards and builders merchants around Britain and to the rest of the world.
The summit comes as a bit of surprise given that the image of the Matterhorn has been seeded in your head. Rather than the imagined sharp peak, there is a long ridge stretching north to another summit of similar height to the marginally higher one on which you now stand.
On a clear day, keeping the height is a blessing as the major peaks of the north of the national park fold out to your left.
Continue along the ridge, bagging or bypassing the northern summit as you feel fit. Keep to more or less the same trajectory as the ridge starts to descend heading for the right hand side of the large lake (Llyn yr Adar) that eventually comes into view ahead.
As you approach the lake, the path diverges with one branch heading left to skirt the lake and the other heading straight on and slightly upwards, making toward the peaks and ridge line ahead of you (Ysgafell Wen). Take the latter, climbing only for 100m or so until there is a very helpful cairn marking the point at which you turn right to stride out directly toward Bwlch Y Rhosydd and the first of the slate mines on the return trip.
The photo is taken from the cairn looking in the direction we are next headed. The slate works we are bound for are not those sitting under the brooding shoulder of Moelwyn Mawr (directly above the cairn in this photo) but those that are sitting below the less-distinct spoil heaps nearer the centre of the photo and slightly to the left of the lake (Llynau Diffwys) just visible in the middle distance. I make this point because the clear footpath at the beginning of this stage belies what is to come. Somewhere just over the brow of the next hump, it petered out to mush. The area is relatively flat though and I guess those that have gone this way just pick their way across avoiding the seasonally more boggy areas.
Keen not to be channelled down into the cwm too early, we kept higher to the left, heading across to Llyn Cwm Corsiog. At least there was a gate here to give some confidence that others may have also come this way. Don't cross the small retaining wall at the end of the lake, rather carry straight on, away from the lake, on indistinct paths.
Soon, siting on the exposed saddle (bwlch) above Cwm Croesor, the brutalist spectacle of the Rhosydd Slate Quarry comes into view below you.
Although there was a gate above us, offering access to higher ground, we stayed on the left hand side of the fence that angles down to the mine workings more or less parallel to, but above and right of, a small stream that heads directly for the flat area of the quarry.
Rosie is legendarily unappreciative of Industrial Architecture (most Spaniels are I reckon), but she wasn't here, so MMM and I just soaked it in. The scale of the endeavour is just enormous.
The barracks and other mine buildings look a bit unsafe but there is much to see. You can't help but wonder at the effort expended and appreciate how rough life would have been working here in winds that, over time, have managed to knock down a meter thick slate wall. The photo really doesn't do it justice.
Refreshingly, there wasn't a single sign saying Dangerous Keep Out. It being bleeding obvious after all.
I think we discovered the worlds first air conditioning unit too. Not really. But it was a humid, quite muggy day. Approaching the mine entrance (that has a shallow stream flowing out of it) you are met by a blast of sweet smelling but chilly air equivalent to the best of air conditioners. I read somewhere that it is 7 to 8 degrees all year round in the labyrinth of mine workings which eat into this seam of slate that runs under Moelwyn Mawr. They were proper hard, them miners.
The navigation isn't over yet, but unbeknown to us at the time, the rest of the walk is part of Eryri's newest long distance path, the Slate Trail. It had therefore been given some yellow topped posts and other livery helpful to navigation. This was a brucey-bonus as the short (0.6ml) hop over to the Croesor Quarry is anything but distinct.
From the Mine entrance at Rhosydd, walk past the remaining mine buildings in the opposite direction to the barracks (i.e. towards Cwm Croesor). More or less at the end of the last building look up to the left to see a yellow topped post. Head up to this and follow the rest of the yellow topped posts on a rough path (mix of rocky and boggy) with a few ups and downs until you find yourself looking down on the yard of the Croesor Quarry with its still-discernible Wheel House standing above the line of the steep Incline at the far end.
I lost the rubber end off one of my poles on this section. Gutted. I’d stopped to take a last photo of Rhosydd - looking back from above was the best angle to be honest - and planted the poles I was using as a knackered-hip mitigation in the soft ground in front of me. On taking the first pole back out, there was a champagne cork pop and the pole came free - without the rubber end. By the time I realised what the pop was, I looked down and the mud had slithered back over the hole leaving no trace. The other pole was still in - so surely, using the other pole as a marker, I'd be able to find the missing end nearby. Wrong. There is a lot of education in the first kick of a mule so I carefully extracted the end of the other pole with end intact and was then steadfast in using a lever motion rather than a vertical pull for the remaining muddy bits. No worries. When I got home I bought a pack of 4 rubber ends from ebay - though, like many emergency bulk buys, I have long since forgotten where I have put the other 3.
Croesor Quarry is just like Rhosydd though not as grand. There is a smaller mine entrance with the same 'air-conditioning' blasting out of the entrance as you get close.
We met a fully-ladened group who were walking the Slate Trail. They were taking a breather before setting off toward Rhosydd on the bit we'd just done. One of them was a qualified caving instructor/guide. He told us that the Croesor mine entrance and the Rhosydd mine are joined and that it is a well known route for cavers to go from one to the other - it takes a good half a day and includes a boat trip and a zip-line to navigate two of the underground lakes. I read later that it is also the 'most-rescued' pothole in North Wales as people get lost and can't find their way out. Stuff that! Must be atmospheric as hell mind you. And you'd come out with a shed load of empathy for the miners who, not so long ago, spent their prime years grafting in that harshest of darknesses (if you found your way out that is). The mine shut its doors for business in 1930.
Covering the remaining mile and a half of the walk is easy. You follow the gently sloping grass track from the ruined wheel house that eventually intersects a lane servicing the farm properties on your right in the foot of the valley. Rather than turn left to follow the lane a short distance back to the car, we crossed directly over and took the short track that tipped us out onto the former Croesor Tramway and, after a little way on this, crossed the bridge over Afon Croesor and back to the car.
'The Knight' had delivered yet another grand day out.
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