Moelwyn Mawr and Bach Direct from Croesor
- daveatkinnerton
- 2 days ago
- 9 min read
Updated: 1 day ago
Walk: A circular route taking a direct line from the slate trail in Cwm Croesor to Moelwyn Mawr summit, skipping over to Moelwyn Bach via Bwlch Stwlan and returning via Bwlch Stwlan (again) and the mining levels feeding to and from the workings at Ceseiliau Duon to end up on a very quiet gated single track lane just 1 km south of where the car is parked
Distance: Approx. 6.5mls
Bus Route: Not applicable on this one
Parking: At the small car park in Croesor - which also has a clean portaloo (There is an honesty box for funds that feed into local community projects).
The Moelwyns are proper mountains and not to be taken lightly. Despite being just above the populated Vale of Ffestiniog, they feel epically remote. A bit of concentration is also required - particularly on the steep rocky decent over Craigysgafn between Moelwyn Mawr and Bwlch Stwlan, overlooking the hydro-electric pumped storage upper lake with its large dam.
This walk takes an even less trodden than less trodden direct route up Moelwyn Mawr. We (Rosie the swamphound spaniel and I) didn't see a single other human (not even in the distance) until reaching the single track lane for the final 1km yomp back to the car park. There are two or three stiles that need to be navigated, and also some opportunities to fall quite a long way if you have a pully dog (or are generally a bit clumsy).
The walk starts in the car park at Croesor . It is best reached from Garreg (a village on the A4085, not too far from the Point Croesor Osprey Visitors Centre). The lane up from Garreg is largely straight single track but really doesn't go anywhere apart from Croesor (so isn't too busy) and, unlike the pretty but very tiresome alternative route from the south, has no gates.
From the car park, cross the stream via a little bridge and turn right up toward Cwm Croesor. After about 500m there is a gate a bridge and a lane/drive which allows you access to the front of a small terraced row of houses. Go past the house, cross the lane and start up the gently sloping track (part of the Snowdonia Slate Trail). This part of Cwm Croesor is beautiful, it gets a bit 'Heritage-Industrial' further up (see a previous write up of Cnicht Circular that uses this part of the Slate Trail to get down). The photo of Rosie on this section is from June 2026. A cuckoo was cuckooing its heart out from a small stand of trees near a cottage on the opposite slopes of the Cwm. Concert hall acoustics.
Rather than going all the way up to the mine workings at Croesor Quarry and climbing around the back of Molewyn Mawr to approach the summit on the Cambrian Way from the north, this route takes a direct line to the west ridge using a path that turns upwards, sharply back on itself from the Slate Trail track. The route uses one of the 'ramps', constructed in yesteryear to get the quarried materials off the mountain's west slopes, to gain height quickly. It's not marked on the OS maps but it is good and entirely navigable.
The path can be found from the Slate Trail track probably about half a mile from the houses you passed below. It is just on your right, about 30m after passing an obviously man-made buttress with a flattened platform above. After passing the buttress, the path you want cuts back sharply to reach a level area 15m or so above. The ramp that you will use to gain access Moelwyn Mawr's west ridge is not that which the path is heading for in front of you - it's not yet visible but is to your left as you are looking uphill. To get to it, go through the iron gate you will see directly above you. It had three ropes to keep it shut - I'm guessing it gets a tad breezy up here on occasion so it's only fair to take equal care in resecuring it.
Immediately after the gate bear left and, after 30m or so, the ramp (going directly and steeply uphill) will appear. Follow it up until, at the top, you reach a wall cutting across. Exit the ramp and follow the wall (which turns into a fence) up to the right (with the wall/fence on your left) until you reach a corner with a wooden crossing-point in the corner of the fence in front of you and an area with the barbed wire stripped back on the left (i.e. in the corner of the fence you have been following up).
You can cross the fence with the wooden support ahead, turn one step to your left and climb a proper stile which is now on your left, or just step over the lower unbarbed fence to get to exactly the same place (see the photo). Once over, head up the rocky path toward some solid looking ex-mining structure on the ridge above. You will later return to this structure by contouring across the western slopes of Moelwyn Mawr on your way back. Pass the structure on the left hand side and continue straight on up the ridge. Don't get drawn off to the right, this is the level track on which you'll return later.
The path is relatively well defined here and takes you steeply up the west ridge before flattening off as you approach the summit. Nothing man made up here. It has the feel of a serious mountain. Once the ridge levels nearing the summit, the feeling persists (or actually increases) as there are some serious drops (the sort that call to you when the wind blows) to your left hand side and which persist all the way to the summit trig point and slightly beyond. We could see the sky darkening to the south west and no sooner had we got a sniff of the abyss to our left, the wind picked up to slap us with bucketfuls of cold rain in a way that felt like God's attempt to push us off over it - like some crap Saturday night TV 'light-entertainment' program.
Digression alert: I like the word Squall. It’s punchy and tells it like it is. It sounds as uncomfortable as it is (dangerous, angry and cold). The absolute opposite of cosy, which also sounds like it feels (warm, safe and comfortable). I thought the description onomatopoeic was only for words that sound like the noise they are describing. Plonk for example. Turns out, according to google anyway, that it can also be used for words that invoke the feeling they are describing. This is surely just lazy lexicography. There must be a word that is easier to spell and which distinguishes words that describe the characteristics or feelings they invoke rather than just their noise. There must be loads and I bet they are all better than plonk. End of digression.
I'm sure the views from the summit would have been glorious. Needless to say, we were concentrating too hard on not being forced over the abyss to hang around, so I didn't even get a photo of the trig point. Swampy wasn't impressed with my management of the squall. I'm guessing she knew it was coming way before I did. In the photo, it looks like she's saying 'I bet you didn't bring my bloody coat did you?'. Sorry Rosie.
There is only one path that continues after the summit, so take it - moving in the same direction as you approached. Shortly after, it splits in two. The left one being the route you would have come up from the north had you not done the direct climb up to the west ridge. For us, now, it's the right fork. This takes you steeply down toward Bwlch Stwlan, the pass that separates the bigger Moelwyn from its 60m smaller neighbour. Llyn Stwlan, the upper lake of the Tan y Grisiau pumped storage hydroelectricity plant, is down there to your left. Before getting to Bwlch Stwlan though, there is another little feature in the form of Craigysgafn that needs to be navigated.
Luckily for us the weather had lightened and we were able to get a good view of the way ahead. Craigysgafn is a rocky 'thing' (more or less a translation) that appears to have been put there just in case you thought things were going to be easy. It turns out things were pretty easy but you need hands-on in a couple of places and I suppose a head for heights as the ground drops away under you quite sharply on the descent to the bwlch - it really wouldn't do to lose your footing.
Before you know it, and hopefully not prematurely, you are down at the bwlch. I got a high-five from my buddy for getting us down safe.
Moelwyn Bach summit is a simple there and back again on the clear path that angles diagonally uphill to the shoulder above before veering around to the right (out of sight from the bwlch) to reach the summit plateau and the cairn that marks it's high point.
It's a pleasant enough climb in a sloggy sort of way, without the forbidding aura of its bigger neighbour. The sort of peak that, while you are there at Bwlch Stwlan, it'd be rude not to do.
While you are on the top of Moelwyn Bach, if it is clear (as it now was for us), you can see the route back cutting across the scree below Graigysgafn and contouring through the mining area of Ceseiliau Duon toward the robust mining structure that you passed earlier in the day. The photo here is taken from the mining track looking back across the scree toward the summit of Moelwyn Bach (in the background).
To get to the start of the track, retrace your steps back to Bwlch Stwlan and turn left, heading down the valley. After a couple of hundred meters you will see a fenced off mine shaft to the right. Turn right here to pick up what becomes the well defined track cutting across the steep scree below Craigysgafn that you can see in the photo.
Cut across the scree until you reach some ruined mine buildings with a further ruined building below. Head down the grassy slope between the upper two buildings to pick up the track again opposite the lower ruin. As shown on the photo. Continue on this track (slightly less well defined here) toward some other ruins ahead.
A little further on, the track does an Italian double bend, steeply downhill, around a fenced off area, and exiting down a swampy shute between two stone walls. Turn right at the bottom of the shute to pick up the track again. The track is now easy to follow right up to the mining structure that you passed earlier at the start of the climb up the western ridge. The structure in question can be seen in the distance on the below photo.
The strucure marks the end of the track. To proceed beyond here, turn left, downhill, retracing your earlier steps to the same '3 way crossing' in the corner of the fence. This time just go over the proper stile and head downhill with the fence on your right. It is sort of a broad ridge and you can see the lane that you are heading for a long way below. The point you join the lane is more or less opposite the long drive up to the farm buildings in the distance (on the other side of the lane from where you are).
The path becomes indistinct but head down toward the lane, tracking for the drive to the distant farm buildings. What you are now looking for is the gap through a fence and a wall giving access to some rough pasture (see photo).
Once through this, even though the track that will get you to the lane appears to be directly below, angle diagonally left toward some hawthorn bushes as below them is a small stile that will get you over a fence and into the final pasture. The stile is shown in the photo below.
Make your way down through the tussocky grass to the grassy track that leads through the sheep pens and heads up to the lane. Exit through the gate at the end of the track and turn right to walk, largely downhill and through a gate in the lane, the final kilometre back to the car park.
A very varied day in some proper mountains. Tell someone where you are going as we saw no-one at all until this point where a driver was opening the gate on the gated lane. It is unlikely that someone will happen upon you if something does go wrong. It does feel very remote. That's the buzz!
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