Another snowy day but we knew it wasn’t going to last so we set out early. This is one of our favourite and most regular walks, setting off from our local village, Dolwyddelan, and walking around the valley leading up to Foel-fras. One side is based on an old Roman road, that’s now the drive-way for the couple of houses up there, and the other side is a wide Forestry Commission track so it’s one of Paula’s favourites as well.
We normally leave the car in the train station car park, go over the bridge and down past the station house. There is a small parking area on the right and then the start of the path. The path up the valley starts with a hill that isn’t all that steep but does go on and on and on. But once that’s out of the way it’s pretty much flat – which makes it a popular walk with lots of people so we nearly always see someone else on this one. This is about the highest point on our walk, guess where Paula is standing!
The walk is about 5 miles in total and usually takes about 2 hours – we’re in no rush. There are quite a few paths to take but the most obvious are the two that follow right around the edge – one at the bottom of the valley and one about two thirds of the way up. This time we were lazy and did the lower path – it still looks great from the furthest point up the valley though.
Our way back was down the left hand side of the valley in the photo above and just before the excavated site (Elan’s house, I believe) we cross back over to the other side of the valley using the foot bridge to get over the river. There are two reasons for this, the dogs stay off their leads for longer because we don’t walk through the village and this river is one of Sami’s favourite swimming spots – hours of fun can be had for her chasing sticks as they float off. Today was a bit flipping cold for all that messing around though – even if most of the snow had melted by the time we got here!
