i took ness up to eryri for a week in mid-october. just me and pip — our border collie, fourteen now, slower than she was, still happier in a wet field than anywhere else. five nights, eight walks, two pubs that did fish and chips, one morning of snow on the carneddau.
it's the right time of year to go. the summer crowd has thinned, the bracken on the lower slopes is going copper, and the first proper gales come in off the irish sea sometime in the third week. the snowdon railway is still running. the b&bs are emptier. the parking's easier.
monday — drive up, settle in.
i left the garage at eleven, stopped at a services on the a5 for a sandwich, was in llanberis by half three. ness fits in the smallest village pull-ins, which is the whole point of her. parked up by llyn padarn for the first night — flat lake, slate cliffs, dolbadarn castle ruined on a knoll at the eastern end. pip swam in the shallow bit by the boat ramp. i made tea in the van and watched the cloud come in.
tuesday — cwm idwal.
drove east on the a5 to ogwen cottage (ll57 3lz, twenty minutes from llanberis). cwm idwal is a national nature reserve and a five-kilometre loop on a stone path that's friendly to old dogs. it goes past llyn idwal — a glacial lake in a bowl of cliffs — and up to the foot of the devil's kitchen (twll du), the dark cleft in the back wall. we did the loop in two hours including stops.
important note for dogs in eryri: lead. always. cwm idwal is grazed by sheep all year and the national trust signs are emphatic about it. autumn is tup season — october into november the rams are out — and farmers have legal grounds to shoot dogs that are worrying livestock. pip's old enough to know better but the lead's on her anyway.
lead. always. autumn is tup season and the farmers have legal grounds.
lunch at the tyn-y-coed inn at capel curig — the one with the old stagecoach outside, dog-friendly bar, decent pie. coffee at moel siabod café next door if it's open. drove back to llanberis the long way over the pass.
wednesday — slow day at llyn padarn.
the lake circuit is six and a half kilometres flat — slate quarry waste on one side, oak woodland (coed dinorwig) on the other. the colour through the oaks in mid-october is the reason you come. pip walked the first half and ate the second half in the back of the van. evening at pen-y-gwryd hotel — the climbing pub between capel curig and llanberis, the one the 1953 everest expedition used as their training base. ceiling covered in old expedition signatures. dogs in the bar. food's slow but worth it.
thursday — aber falls.
north today. abergwyngregyn is a small village on the north coast (ll33 0lp), and from the car park behind the village there's a wide forestry track to rhaeadr-fawr — aber falls — about two kilometres each way, gentle. easy on a dog who's seen better days. the falls are 35 metres high, plunging off the carneddau plateau. pip stood in the spray pool and looked at me like i'd planned the whole trip for her benefit.
back south through the carneddau in the afternoon. the first proper snow of the season was sitting on foel-fras at the top of the range. we didn't go up — that's a different week — but the view from the road was enough.
friday — colour.
drove to coed-y-brenin near dolgellau — the forest park that does the autumn colour photoshoot every year. beech, oak, larch in mid-october is a riot. there are mountain bike trails so you keep an ear out for bells, but the walking trails are quiet enough. lunch at the visitor centre café.
afternoon at beddgelert. the village is touristy but the walk up the aberglaslyn pass is the version of the river-and-oak-wood walk that sticks in your head. the welsh highland railway runs through and we sat by the gorge while a steam train went over us. pip was unsure of the train. i was unsure of the train.
evening: tan-y-bwlch. drove down to maentwrog and parked under coed felenrhyd — atlantic rainforest, sessile oak, mossy boulders, the kind of woodland nobody talks about because it's not on a snowdon trail.
saturday — home.
i drove down through betws-y-coed and stopped at swallow falls (rhaeadr ewynnol). it's a tourist stop but in october at half eight in the morning there's nobody there. ate a bacon roll in the lay-by. drove home.
a few notes.
- mwis — the mountain weather information service — is your friend. better than any app for the summit-level forecast.
- capel curig is one of the wettest weather stations in britain. if you're going for a week, two of those days will rain. take the proper waterproof, not the show one.
- october is tup season. dogs on a lead near livestock. it's not optional and it's not pedantic.
- fuel up in betws-y-coed or llanberis — the inland villages run dry on bank holidays.
- if you're going with a dog and a partner who walks faster than you, ness's swivel cab seats make the back of the van the dog bedroom by half past eight. it's a trick worth knowing.